Thinking of adding lights.

[Pomme]

Thinking of adding lights.

I am thinking of adding some lights to my tank (eg t5s).

The tank is a 100 gal with sump, skimmer, ca reactor, kalk reactor, rowaphos reactor, 2 tunze 6000 streams and multicontroller. The lighting is a single 250 watt 14k hqi with 2 18watt actinics.

It has 100 kg if live rock and is dominated by 1 full sps colony and 6 small colonies and around 20 frags.

The water conditions are:
Temp - 27
Salininty - 1.025 or 35ppt.
Ph - 8
Am / Nitrite - 0
Nirtate - 0.1
dKH - 9
Calcium - 420
Mg - 1550
Strontium - 8
Phosphate - 0

The problem i am having is that some of the sps corals since going into the tank have gone brown, so i was thinking if i add some extra lighting to this would it help?







I was thinking of adding one of the Deltec double t5 units, http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.com/lighting.php I was thinking of going for the aqua blue or the actinic plus with the midday 6000.

Or do you guys think a different combination would be better?

Would this help the corals from browning out by providing more light for them especially in the actinc part?

Andrew

[Pomme]

i could add two 150 watt double ended halides from stm or 2 250 watters:

http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/STM_Lighting_.html

with the bulbs being either 150 watt 10k, 150watt 14k, or 250 watt 20k.

http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/M...ide_lamps.html

but i would most like to get de 150 watt 20k, but will look around a bit more for these?

[zhenya]

Andrew,

I'm not sure if lights alone are responsible for coloration of this corals.Although, I think a single MH bulb for a 100g tank might come up a bit short and adding another would probably help overall to balance everything out. As far as your frags or colonies going brown, it happens sometimes even with the most intense lighting over the tank, they could be acclimating for instance and this proccess can take anywhere from 2-6 month.All depends what lighting their were kept under prior to going into your tank,plus, there is no two tanks that are alike in terms of water chemistry and slight differences could result in browning out.I'm sure that they will bounce back for you after being for some time in your tank. T5's are good source of light but I would consider just adding another MH bulb in the 10K spectrum or the same spectrum that you are using now.
Make sure to acclimate your corals accordingly if you add any new lighting as not to shock and bleach your corals.

Good luck!

[Pomme]

if i was to add another metal halide of the 150 watt and 14k or two of them. would the best way to acclimatise them be to have them come in the middle of the day for 1hour and then every day increase this by 10 mins to slowly build up the time?

[zhenya]

if i was to add another metal halide of the 150 watt and 14k or two of them. would the best way to acclimatise them be to have them come in the middle of the day for 1hour and then every day increase this by 10 mins to slowly build up the time?

Andrew, why not add just one more 250w HQI type bulb for the other side of your tank with the actinics that you have for dusk/dawn effect?
To acclimate your tank to new bulbs you can use variety of methods,from using multiple wondow screen material to slowly increasing your photoperiod as you described. The goal is to make your coral adapt to the new light slow enough as to not shock them and possibly killing them.

Here's a thread for you to read about on/off approach to acclimate your corals to lighting.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...ng+acclimation

[Pomme]

cool thanx for that zhenya.

[Pomme]

hiya guys,
update for you............

well i went and got two of the stm compact lights from jon forneman second hand, they have the blv 10k de 250 watt bulbs in there. the tank looks so much more brighter now , i am running the two new 250 for 1 hour each day and i will increase this by 30 mins every week, or would 5 mins a day be better?







i also got two tunze 6100 from preds (ollie) , so now i have 2x 6000 and two x 6100 on a multicontroller, they are in a bad place at the moment but i will be moving them around to different places in the future. but the amount of water movement is carzy, on the surface where the 3 tunzes meet the one tunzes flow there is like a small motionless wave on the surface its wierd ???? I have them all on 30% at the mo but will slowly increase this untill i get a level that i like

Andrew

[Poseidon]

WOW ANDREW that is BRIGHT!!! I agree those streams need to be moved, they are just so UGLY!! Oh well... Form follows function right?

[Pomme]

yeah nice and bright. i hope the corals appreciate it.

yeah i will be moving two of the streams under the eggcrate frame which i have , and will be made so that it is easily get able if needed to ,but will not be doing that for a while as got exams coming up and have to do some serious revision.