lighting for small reef tank?

[tlpmyd]

hi everyone well i took it upon myself to make a small nano like reef tank this week, i grabbed a 20 gallon long i had, and a T5HO 36", 156w: (3x39w white + 1x39w actinic blue) light that i really never used, my question was is that light powerful enough for me to keep my sps,lps, clams, etc?? i basically will be housing all my frags in this small tank? also i have heard that a skimmer is not really needed for a tank this small, is this true?? i have about 40lbs of nice live rock in there as well. just wondering if my frags will be good under that light since the tank is only about 10 inches deep and the frags will be on the live rocks anyway so maybe they will be anywhere from 6 to 10 inches below the T5HO lights. think that will work??? here is what it looks like so far, sorry for the blurryness.

[lReef lKeeper]

they should do fine in there, especially if the T5's have individual reflectors. i would start the sps frags out near the bottom and slowly move them up to close to the top if there are no individual reflectors.

[Phurst]

I agree with Bobby about the lighting. Should be fine. I don't think a skimmer is necessary, especially if there are no fish.

[tlpmyd]

sweet thanks for the fast replies, i probably will add a fish or two, and maybe some sea horse to the frag tank to give it some movement

[lReef lKeeper]

be sure to do A LOT of research if you want to keep seahorses in the tank. a lot of times they are NOT suitable for a reef. there is just to much flow in a reef and the corals can sting and kill them. so keeping seahorses in a reef is not the greatest idea, IMO. a lot of times they try to hitch to the corals and get seriously stung and can not recover from the stinging.