lighting help

[Blennie]

hey guys. i have a lighting question for ya. my tank is 60" x 18" x 20"

i currently have
2 x 60" vho blue actinic
2 x 60" vho white
2 x ushio 175 watt 10000k MH

my tank is 20" tall

i currently have 1 BTA a few shrooms, a bubble coral, and a red open brain.

is this too much light? can i get away with just using the mh and one of the blue and one of the white? teach me please

[charlie]

If it was me, I would just lose the vho white lites, and use the actinics for the "dawn-dusk effect". Also, what other corals do you expect to get?

[Blennie]

I just plan on keeping LPS and softies.

i also have a pink vho bulb, ever seen one like that?

ty for helping

[charlie]

Sounds like one of those 50/50 bulbs, is it?

[Blennie]

the only markings on the pink light are VHO-1. i have no clue what this bulb actually is

[charlie]

Heck, I just tossed all my old bulbs about 3 weeks ago in a cleanup for the hloidays frenzy, so I can't really tell. I know I had one that was an "Aquasun" that looked pink to me. The 50/50 thing I was talking about is probably a normal output lite, sorry.
I think you are good to go on your lites, although if you ever wanted to upgrade, I think that 250w halides would also be good. HTH

[Ninong]

There are no pink fluorescents used in the marine aquarium hobby but I believe they are sometimes used in freshy tanks. GE makes a pink fluorescent.

[Blennie]

thanx for all the help. i will stick with the 2 blues and the mh then. since i turned the 2 white off the fish have been more active. my BTA looks a deeper green also.
that pink light is aquasun from URI i found an inventory list given to me when i got the tank (from a guy i used to work with who moved to africa). i went on the web site to try and figure out what its used for but i cant seem to find aquasun.

[Ninong]

URI's Aquasun is a daylight fluorescent. I wouldn't call it "pink." If it looks pink, maybe it's worn out?

They also make an Actinic White and a Super Actinic. The Super Actinic is what we would call actinic and the Actinic White is what we would call 10,000K. The Aquasun is closer to what we would call 6500K. That's translating the fluorescents into their apparent equivalents in metal halides. The manufacturer (URI) probably won't agree with that but they keep changing their claimed Kelvin ratings on those lamps anyway. I believe they now claim that the Actinic White is 12,000K and the AquaSun is 10,000K or something like that. Those numbers are too high. They make no Kelvin claims for the Super Actinic, which is the correct way to go on that one.