Is weaker lighting better in some cases? What kind of lighting do you recommend for a FOWLR?

[Daniel@R2R]

I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that if someone doesn't want anything photosynthetic in their tank, they may actually benefit from a weaker light than we use in our Reef tanks, right? I'm thinking that in the absence of coral, those lights with coral growing power will actually only be helping to grow the one thing we all hate...algae. But at the same time, you'd still want to view your fish in a FOWLR, so you'd still want a good light... I'm not sure at this point what would be best. Which lights would you guys recommend to someone who is sure they don't want coral for the foreseeable future?

 

[HOOPDEEZ]

I don’t have a FOWLR, but if I did I wouldn’t use the same lighting as my reef. I would probably get a less powerful light (or less lights turned down/further above water) that I could still control spectrum on. That way I could adjust it to show off the colors on my fish, and if algae gets out of hand I could eliminate all the white and red spectrum out of the light

 

[andrewkw]

For your friends little clownfish tank something cheap on amazon that will provide enough coverage. For a larger fowlr I would do either black boxes turned down or even say 2 kessils hung real high over a 6 foot tank so that I still get shimmer. When I had a lionfish in my 90g when it was a fish only I ran a 250w metal halide. I already had the fixture but the fish look fantastic under MH. I just ran it for a few hours a day when I'd be looking at the tank and that's it.

 

[dbowman5]

luckily i could keep my same lights because they are pretty weak for reefing