Lighting

[siidman]

Hey everyone. I'm new to this forum and have been reading a lot but I havent found too much on lighting requirements. I have a lot of experience with reef aquariums and actually took mine down a few months ago since I'm about to move to Houston. I'm planning on starting my next tank, which I'm wanting to do a planted discus tank, in about 6 months. I love reef set ups but after a while they turn into almost a chore because there is so much equipment to keep up with and water parameters and fish and coral to check on every day. But I've been thinking of the equipment that I already have and for lighting I have 3 Radion Gen 2's. I've seen that radion makes freshwater lights so I'm guessing the lighting is a little different from fresh to saltwater. I imagine coral requires a lot more light for growth, depending on which type and depth of course. But my radeons can be adjusted for strength and each color can be adjusted as well and I'll be doing this in a standard size 180g aquarium. Sorry for the life story, but can anyone explain this to me please?
thanks

[Jack L]

maybe start by researching these plants
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?30952-Plants-For-A-Discus-Tank

decide the ones you want to go with, then go from there. Ds don't need much/any light. plants do. if you have fully controllable radions, that should be more than you need for plants.

[Filip]

I'm not familiar with coral tanks and your type of radion led,but I know that freshwater plants thrive in lower kelvin range 5000-6500 and most coral lights use kelvins well above 10 000.

If you can adjust it to 6000 k light
Maybe it would' be good to go.

Also one other light parameter to consider is light intensity - lumens per gallon.
You can search for it on net,depending on plant types you will have.

[siidman]

Ya that's right. I kept my reef lifting at about 18k. The high K range gives a lot of blues and makes the corals look a lot better. From what you guys are saying I will be able to use these light as I thought but I'll have to do so adjusting of intensity and the kelvin range. You can hook up a laptop to radions and adjust all these things which is very nice but the lights are so powerful I was growing some the more light intensive corals with My lights at 65% intensity in a 180g tank. I guess I'll just have to see if I can make the plants happy with my lights and if not get something else. But I can reduce he intensity of my lights to 1% so it should be ok.
Thanks guys