I've always hear about how many watts per gallon it takes to run reef tanks, but I know that watts don't matter with lighting, lumens do. So does anyone know how many lumens per gallon it takes to run a reef tank?

For those of us who don't know, Sergeant Major, what are lumens and how do you find out how much your bulbs put out? I'm sure this would really help those that would like to start a planted tank or reef tank. Lumens are much more important than 'watts per gallon'.

Lumens are a measurement of how much light a bulb puts out. 1 lumen would equal the light that one candle would put out.

Additionally there is the CRI or Color Rendering Index, and color temperature to think about. Natural blue sky light is between 12,000 - 20,000 K and 100 CRI.

The closer to natural daylight that you can get, the better. I will write more on this later tonight... or not.