New MH lights

[ksfireman]

I just have a couple of questions. I just traded my single 400w MH mogul unit for a 3ft long 2 x 150mh hqi with 1 65w pc unit. I am not too sure what kelvin the 2 hqi bulbs are, but one is EXTREMELY blue, and the other is pretty white in color. I had my 400w hanging about 1 1/2 ft above the tank and it lit up the tank perfectly. Now with my new light I had to drop it down to about 8 - 10" above the water and it is still pretty dim. I was told that the bulbs in this light are only about 4 months old. My concern is this: how is it going to effect my corals? My pink tip anenome is still out, but it is not as happy with these new lights, my xenia are out as well, but not like they were before. Will my corals adjust to the new lights in the next few days, or do I need to buy some new bulbs?

My next question is this: The glass cover that acts as a uv shield has cracked and broke. This was a brand new piece of glass. I think the problem is the fact that the glass touches the bulbs because of the track that holds the glass is so close to the bulbs. Is there any way to fix this, or is there a special type of glass needed to keep it from breaking? My unit is a Jalli A18.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Bradd

[SKRIZ]

can you tell what kind/brand the hqi bulbs are?

[charlie]

The glass that broke shields UV from getting in the tank. you are gonna want to fix that.
Your corals are definitly going to go thru an other acclimation period, don't really know how they will react until it happens.

[Reefland]

That is a pretty good drop in intensity so you'll most likely see some changes in the coloration of your corals.

[ksfireman]

I believe that my bulbs are Grandlife. I do want to buy a different brand though. I have since added a single 65w daylight pc to help to brighten the tank up a little bit. So far my corals seem to be doing ok, but you can tell that my pink tip anenome isn't as happy as it used to be. I just hope that everything will be ok.

Thanks for all of the help,

Bradd

[Ninong]

I just hope that everything will be ok.

Thanks for all of the help,

Bradd

I'm not sure if I'm reading your post right or not but if you are running the fixture with two 150w HQI DE metal halide lamps WITHOUT a glass UV shield, you are killing the inhabitants of your tank. You need to turn off the halides immediately! Even a few hours of exposure to unshielded DE halide lamps can cause severe harm to fish and invertebrates.

Double-ended metal halide lamps emit UV-A, B & C. The UV-A is relatively harmless, the UV-B is harmful and any amount of UV-C is deadly. These lamps emit a lot of UV-A, a considerable amount of UV-B and a tiny amount of UV-C. They should NEVER be run without a UV shield under any circumstances for any length of time.

P.S. -- My fixture has tempered glass as the UV shield. That's fairly standard for fixtures with HQI DE lamps.

[ksfireman]

I figured that might be a problem, so I put the glass tops back on my tank for now. I am going to go out Monday or Tuesday and try to get some tempered glass that is cut to fit and hope that works. Thanks for all the info and help.


Bradd

[Ninong]

My Aqua-Medic fixture uses 3/16" thick regular tempered glass as a UV shield. That's all you need. Just tempered glass that is 3/16" thick. That will block all of the harmful UV completely and most of the UV-A, too.

It has to be tempered glass to withstand the high heat from the lamps.

[ANGRY JOHN]

CONSIDERING YOU WENT FROM A 400W BULB TO TWO SMALLER BULBS AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME COLOR THERE IS GOING TO BE AN ANIMAL RESPONCE. THE QUESTION I ASK MYSELF IS WHAT COLOR WAS THE BULB YOU HAD AND WHAT IS THE COLORS OF THE BULBS YOU HAVE NOW. IF YOU HAD A 6500K 400W BULB THAT THING IS BRIGHT AS HELL AND NOW YOU HAVE TWO LOWER WATTAGE BULBS THAT THE COLOR IS UNKNOWN AND A PC THAT IS A DAYLIGHT COLOR. WHAT I WOULD THINK WOULD MAKE SENCE IS TO GET TWO NEW GOOD QUALITY 10K BULBS AND THE PC SHOULD BE USED TO SUPLEMENT THE BLUE. MABE IT MAKES SENCE BUT NOT TO ME.

[Ninong]

Will my corals adjust to the new lights in the next few days, or do I need to buy some new bulbs?

Thanks,

Bradd

Bradd,

I neglected to answer your question because I was more concerned with warning you that you were killing everything in your tank by running the two 150w HQI DE lamps without a UV shield. That was what was causing the reaction you were observing.

As far as going from the single 400w metal halide to the two 150w HQI DE halides plus 65w PC is concerned, yes, there will be a period of three weeks or so that the corals will require for adaptation. Your new lighting is actually better, in my opinion, than your previous single 400w lamp. Corals that were directly under the 400w lamp will now be receiving less intense lighting than previously but this is not a difficult adaptation and not nearly as potentially troublesome as the reverse adaptation, from weaker to stronger illumination.

You may want to check the Kelvin ratings on your new halides. I would go with two 10,000K lamps since you have a PC fluorescent for actinic supplementation. The 10,000K 150w DE halides are much more intense than the 20,000K 150w DE halides.

[ksfireman]

CONSIDERING YOU WENT FROM A 400W BULB TO TWO SMALLER BULBS AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME COLOR THERE IS GOING TO BE AN ANIMAL RESPONCE. THE QUESTION I ASK MYSELF IS WHAT COLOR WAS THE BULB YOU HAD AND WHAT IS THE COLORS OF THE BULBS YOU HAVE NOW. IF YOU HAD A 6500K 400W BULB THAT THING IS BRIGHT AS HELL AND NOW YOU HAVE TWO LOWER WATTAGE BULBS THAT THE COLOR IS UNKNOWN AND A PC THAT IS A DAYLIGHT COLOR. WHAT I WOULD THINK WOULD MAKE SENCE IS TO GET TWO NEW GOOD QUALITY 10K BULBS AND THE PC SHOULD BE USED TO SUPLEMENT THE BLUE. MABE IT MAKES SENCE BUT NOT TO ME.

My old 400w was a 20k and the new bulbs are 150w de hqi. One is a 10k and not sure about the other, but am assuming it is either 10k or 14k... it has a slight blue tint to it. I am looking into buying 2 new 10k Ushio or Iwasaki bulbs as well as some tempered glass for the uv shield.

Thanks,

Bradd

[golfish]

My old 400w was a 20k and the new bulbs are 150w de hqi. One is a 10k and not sure about the other, but am assuming it is either 10k or 14k... it has a slight blue tint to it. I am looking into buying 2 new 10k Ushio or Iwasaki bulbs as well as some tempered glass for the uv shield.

Thanks,

Bradd

The 10K Ushio's are a bright white tipping towards the yellow side. The only 150 watt DE saki bulb I know of is the 50K. They do make a 6.5K SE bulb. I ran the 150 watt DE 50K saki for a few months over a frag tank. I liked the bulb, it ran a crisp white with a hint of blue.

[charlie]

The 10K Ushio's are a bright white tipping towards the yellow side. The only 150 watt DE saki bulb I know of is the 50K. They do make a 6.5K SE bulb. I ran the 150 watt DE 50K saki for a few months over a frag tank. I liked the bulb, it ran a crisp white with a hint of blue.

What ballast were you running the 10k Ushios on? I had 2 of them on a PFO pulse start and they were really nice and crisp white.

[golfish]

What ballast were you running the 10k Ushios on? I had 2 of them on a PFO pulse start and they were really nice and crisp white.

I've ran the 400 watt 10 Ushio's on the PFO HQI (son agro sp?) and the PFO standard (M59) I ran the 250 watt DE version on the PFO HQI (M80) and the 150 watt Verson on the Blue Wave HQI (I think its M88?) The color was pretty much the same on on three bulbs.. Chrisp white with a hint of yellow.

Back when I started running 250 watt DE's the best bulbs you could get were the 10K Ushio and 10K AB's, both were the same color..I didn't want to run actinics so I gave up on em and went to 400 watt Radiums. Since then they've come out with some really nice bulbs.