Major Lighting Upgrade. Need Some Imput

[weez1959]

Off topic, this is the first time I've seen your tank... Wow! That's all I can say...
Your sump is bigger than my tank

[tike]

Hey Mike,
did you ever make a decsion on the type of lighting you decided to switch out to?? Curious minds wanna know!!

[64Ivy]

Funny you should ask. After going through an absurd number of delays, miscues, and ****fits, the new trio of Sfiligoi Infinity Twin 2 x 400Ws were finally hung and fired up a little over a month ago...complete with ACLS ballasts. For bulbs, I decided to go with all (6) AquaConnect 14Ks.

At first, I thought they were a bit too blue but as they were new to my eye, they hadn't burned in yet, and I was utilizing the ballast's very cool 15 day new bulb ramp up setting, I was going to wait about a month before making any decisions. For those who don't know, these ballasts have a 'new bulb' setting that begins by firing the bulbs at about 75% of their total intensity then ramping them up a little bit every day until they reach full intensity in two weeks or so. Kinda like an electronic adaptation screen for new corals.

Anyway, this all worked fine until about a week after the bulbs reached full capacity. Then some of the corals started to bleach; mainly the pieces uppermost on the rockwork, the Seriatoporas, and they deeper water species, even though they were already on the bottom. A few are even losing their tissue. Clearly, the change in intensity was still too much, even with all the precautions.

I have therefore ramped down the lighting intensity to a constant 75% (the ballasts also allow you to permanently set whatever percentage of intensity you choose) and will give it some time there. Of course, I had almost gotten used to the color of the bulbs before I had to dial them down. Now they look too blue again.

But I guess that's better than the acros looking white.

[Reefland]

A blue tank is much better than white acros.

[reefboy23]

I went with the Reeflux 12k 400w bulbs mounted in luminarc reflectors and I was so impressed that I am going to keep mt MH system and go all 5 lamps 12k. Here is a pic...

I was debating what bulb i should use for my lumenarcs but you seem to be happy with this choice so i might give them a try.

[Samper]

Yeah this is great!

[reseter5]

just curious what your electric bill is.......