AP24 Lighting

[SColby]

Hello,
I am new to the forum but have been on as a vistor before. My question is where should my light be placed on my AP(how far above)?
I have had it running for about a year and I haven't had a lot of luck with keeping corals alive. I am still learning all the terminoligy for different types of corals. I have some good places to get info around town but I need more. No one can seem to tell me what is going on with my tank.
A little more info....
I am running the Ap24 HQI with the 70w bulb. I would like to be able to put some frogspawn or anemone. I have tried frogspawn once but it died out after about a week. I had a brain coral that lasted a couple of weeks or so before it gave up. I have even had some sea mat the was doing well for some time then refused to come out and i believe that gave in as well.
So what is in the pictures is what seems to be doing pretty well and haning on.

 

[SColby]

Sorry I had to upload some pics and i also hit enter before doing so. Here are some pics

I hope this works

 

[Azial]

While the intensity of this bulb is very nice it's a bit underpowered wattage wise. I would stick to mushrooms, polyps and maybe softies. that's my 2cents

 

[SugarFox03]

There's got to be some under lying issue as to why you can't keep corals. What are your water params? What are you using for water changes & top off water? What additives do you use and how much/how often?

For the lighting issue, just my opinion, but your light is way too high above the tank. I had my 150w MH about 6-7 inches from the water service when I had my 24g AP running, and currently have it 3-4 inches above my 26g bowfront. Drop yours down about 5-6 inches, you may have better luck. Also, your light isn't strong enough to sustain an anemone, but you should be able to keep euphyllia (frogspawn, torch & hammer corals.) Brains are picky, I lost one (I almost cried) but it was before I knew anything about them, and I got one that was bleached, didn't know of such a thing, and realized I wasn't feeding it enough until it was beyond salvation.

But I agree with Azial, stick with softies...you can make a really nice leather/muchroom/zoanthid tank if you're the creative type. Those all should do well with your lighting. Or...you could always upgrade your lighting and be able to keep more, thats always a fun option!

 

[smithcreek]

Not sure what bulb you have but if it's only a 70watt the first thing I would do is make sure it's 10k. Anything over that may look nicer but at only 70watt won't be giving your corals enough light.

 

[Rosseau]

By the way, your pictures would have worked if you remove the spaces before and after the jpeg link (moving the IMG code in so it is touching the link).

 

[SColby]

Thanks for the info so far. I will have to double check on the wattage of the light. I believe it to be the 70 but I can't remeber as my wife bought the tank for me as a gift.

As far as my water goes, I was using water from my softner but have switched to staight well water. My salinity is at .025 and as far as the rest I can only say that when I do a quick dip everything seems good. I will have to check later tonight to give specifics on things.

I currently do not add additives to the water.

A couple other things I should have mentioned was that I do have the blue filtration pads in the filter. Should I remove them? I also run the nano fission skimmer. The carbon balls and ceramic tubes are out.

Again thanks so far as I still have alot to learn about these tanks.

 

[SugarFox03]

I would check the quality of your well water...thats probably your problem right there. Are you testing this water? First thing, get a TDS meter (total dissolved solids - around $20 on ebay) and see what the level is. If its not 000, don't use it. Next, get a copper test kit (Salifert makes excellent tests) and test your salt water. Since you're using well water, there's a good chance that water has been run through some type of copper piping. Thats probably the reason you cant keep corals...they cannot handle any level of copper. If thats the case, toss everything in the tank and start over, as its already seeped into your live rock/sand.

Please report back with your other parameters when you can!

 

[KMP]

^ copper - that's what i was thinking.

 

[SColby]

OK i just did a quick dip test to see where things are at.

Nitrates 0
Nitrites 0
Alkalinity 300
PH I am going to say around 8.1. The test shows either 7.8 or 8.4. It is neither one of these but in between.

As far as the water coming form the well it is straight from it. Not through the pipes at all. I draw it right from my tank.

As far as the lighting goes now, I have left it where it is in the pictures and things seem to like where it is at. It has been almost 2 weeks and I have noticed things seem to look better than they had. I will try to get some more pics soon and post them.

Thanks for the info so far.

 

[Bmgrocks]

it seems like ur using ur standard Fresh/Salt, dip tests

if you want to keep corals, i suggest getting the reef master test kits, or kits specificially for ALK, and CAL,

once ur ALk and Cal are up , ur pH and Hardness will fallow with no help from ou

 

[SColby]

Here's an updated picture. I removed the damsel and added a torch and some yellow polyups. I also put a clown fish in. As of right now my light is about 8" above the tank. Things seem very happy right now. I hope they stay this way. I am still planning on adding a couple more fish and some more corals. I plan on taking my time in doing so to make sure that everything is doing well. If things happen to go down hill then i will start with the water testing and go from there. Thanks agian for the input. As things progress I will update.