This is a very basic primer that will steer you to other pages that will help you to understand and determine which aquarium lighting is best for your tank.
Reef Tank Lighting (tanks with corals)
If you have a single coral you need to treat the entire tank as a reef tank (in terms of lighting and filtration). Reef tanks need more lighting than fish only saltwater tanks. A tank with live rock—where you are cultivating the photosynthetic animals or macro algae commonly found on live rock—needs to be treated as a reef tank. Fish tanks with live rock used for the purpose of beneficial bacteria or natural appearance do not need high output lighting and should be treated as fish only tanks where lighting is concerned.
If you have a reef tank or you will need high intensity aquarium lighting such as a T5 Lighting, Metal Halide Lighting or Compact Fluorescent Lighring. Some LED Lighting we carry may also suffice.
We sell over two hundred unique lights at Gina's Aquarium Supply.As you will notice when looking over the lighting charts, the depth of a tank has a dramatic effect on lighting requirements. Since a light's intensity is dramatically decreased with distance, a tank that is deeper needs more light than a relatively shallow tank holding the same number of gallons of water. According to the Inverse Square Law: The intensity of light falling upon an object decreases in proportion to the square of the distance between the object and the light source. So, a doubling of distance between the lamps and the organisms will result in a need for four times as many lamps for the organisms to grow at the same rate.
If your aquarium has a canopy (a box cover) you probably want an aquarium lighting retrofit. The retrofit will need to be screwed into the canopy. Please consult the Chart for Choosing the Best Lighting Retrofit for a Reef Aquarium to determine which of our retrofit lights will work best.
Proper light spectrum is critical to a successful reef aquariums. The natural habitats of many common reef aquarium organisms have a bluer light spectrum. Reef aquariums are commonly lit with a combination of daylight and blue (aka actinic) lamps to emulate the natural ocean environment. All lighting systems we sell at the Chart for Choosing The Best Lighting for a Reef Aquarium and Chart for Choosing the Best Lighting Retrofit for a Reef Aquarium, except for the rare light that does not come with bulbs, will have the proper balance of daylight and actinic lamps.
Planted Freshwater Tank Lighting (tanks with plants)
Planted freshwater tanks also require ample lighting. Many of the lights used for freshwater planted tanks are essentially the same as those used for reef tanks. However, there is one important difference. Freshwater planted tanks only use full spectrum daylight bulbs (e.g. 6700K, 6500K) and do not use the blue tinted actinic bulbs (which have no benefit to freshwater plants).
Fish-Only Tank Lighting
Fish-only tanks require relatively little light as fish do not require much light. Keep in mind that the amount of light needed for a freshwater planted tank is very subjective because most of the light is really for the aquarist to adequately see into the tank. What appears overly bright to one person may be dim to another.