lighting times and various other questions

[josh26757]

im very new to the saltwater world and need to learn alot.
the first thing i dont understand is a fish only tank can have live rock or no live rock.(mine has live rock cause i want to work toward a reef tank)
so why all the contriversy about how much live rock?
if you really dont have to have it who cares if you have 10 lbs or 50lbs.
i know yor bio filter will work "better" with the right amount but you dont need it all at once right?
question 2
i have seen alot of controversy about lighting.so ill tell you what i have and you tell me what to do with it.
this is for a 75g tank with 2 clowns,1 damsel,1 serpent star,
1 decorater crab,1 horseshoe crab,2 sand snails,2 turbo snails,
2 hermit crabs,25 lbs live rock 30 lbs base rock,getting ready to buy dead live rock,40 lbs live sand and 40 lbs of tropical play sand
2-10,000k/6,700k=130w
2-dual actinic =130w
8-led luner lights=20w
total 280w
all Current brand 4 straight pin.
i need to set up the timers for the lights.ive heard to run the actincs all day or just 2 hours in morn. and night.all comments are welcome.
all help is welcome no matter what it is about.the best to learn from is experience.thanks for the help.

[charlie]

I would run the actinics 12 hours, and your daylites 8 hours. Have your actinics come on 2 hours before and stay on 2 hours after your daylites go off. It is called the dawn-dusk effect. JMHO

[cdearing]

I have similar lighting and run my actinics for 12 hours and my daylights for 10 hours. I don't know if that is right or wrong but it's been working for me so far. I guess if I ran my daylights for only 8 hours, I could save a little electricity huh? My moonlights come on after the actinics go out at night and I leave them on for about 1 1/2 hours. Some people leave them on all night but I like a reallly dark house when I'm sleeping so I just shut them off.
Cyn

[jong0726]

i am not that sure if light ballasts will do good. ask professional help to make certain.

[charlie]

i am not that sure if light ballasts will do good. ask professional help to make certain.

First off, welcome to Reefland.

Not sure, but those ballasts won't really help him out much. Those are for regular old T12 normal output bulbs.

[josh26757]

the lights i bought are odyssea 260w.ive heard that people are having problems with them so i gutted the whole light.i took out the ballast and replaced them with current brand ballasts and had an electrician at work check the wiring.all i used was the casing.changed everything else.
i hope i dont have any problems with the current ballast cause they dont have a perfect record eather.i guess they will last tell i can get some icecaps for it.

so if i get corals that require alot of light could i change all the lights to 10000/6700 k light and run a seporate 40w actinic light to equial 320w?

[charlie]

First things first. How long has your tank been set up?

[josh26757]

im not getting corals soon my tank is only 7-8 weeks old.if i try anything it would be an Anemone in maybe a couple weeks.just want to make sure all my ducks are in a row from the start.

[charlie]

An anenome would be the last thing I would add. First, most require fairly intense lighting, and secondly, the tank should be mature before adding one. Start slow. do a little more research on starting up a tank, there is plenty of info around here that will point you in the correct direction. JMHO