Best Zoa Lighting

[dcortes19]

I'm in the market to replace my 22" T5 HO 24w bulbs and currently have MarineGlo bulbs. I have a collection of zoas i just started and want them to grow out. Three questions please,

1. What brand of bulbs have given you good success and what brand do you think is best?

2. What color combination of bulbs would be best for more growth and showing off the color of my zoas. I currently have 2 blue actinic and 2 daylights(white i guess).

3. When i do replace them i have heard of light acclamation for zoas and corals so do i turn the lights off sooner then i have them set for now, or do i replace them one a day? Let me know how you guys do it please.

Thanks!

I have a Sun System Tek Light that holds 4 T5 bulbs with individual reflectors.

 

[jeff@zina.com]

1) Geismann and ATI.
2) 10,000K-12,000K are good, whatever combination you use to make them. See the lighting forum for details, especially the T5 thread.
3) Put afew layers of screen over the tank and remove one each week.

Jeff

 

[dcortes19]

Great! Thanks for the help Jeff. Appreciate it.

 

[XSharkboyX]

1) Geismann and ATI.
2) 10,000K-12,000K are good, whatever combination you use to make them. See the lighting forum for details, especially the T5 thread.
3) Put afew layers of screen over the tank and remove one each week.

Jeff

+1 I am running 6 ATI/Geissmann bulbs on my 125.

 

[dcortes19]

I decided on the ATI or Geissmann bulbs only problem is i cant find any in 22". The smallest they have is 24". I live in florida so i looked on aquacon.com and the smallest they have is also the 24". I also looked elsewhere and had the same results. Do you guys know if coralife bulbs are any good or the marineglo? or do you know of a website that sells the 22" ATI/Geissmann. Thanks

 

[organism]

At 22" you're not going to find very much unfortunately, companies usually make them at obscure lengths like that so that people are stuck buying their bulbs...

 

[dcortes19]

I finally found some on amazon, i got 2 Zoo Med Coral Sun Actinic and 2 Zoo Med Ocean Sun 10,000K Daylight. I never had these before but the color the Actinics have is really nice. Hopefully my zoas like the lighting. Has anyone ever had these bulbs?

 

[organism]

Don't know if they've shipped already, but you'll get better colors with 3 actinics and 1 daylight.

 

[dcortes19]

yeah they have and i installed them already 2 days ago. The actinics are giving off a purple color and it looks good mixed with the white. The reason why i went with the 2 10000k is i think i remember reading something that zoas need that light in order to grow. Dont know if its true but thats why i went with the 2 actinic and 2 10000k. They say they are made in germany so there "high quality" bulbs but im happy with the color and doing a light acclamation so i have screen over the tank so hopefully when the screen comes off the zoas like them.

 

[gldnegle76]

The reason why i went with the 2 10000k is i think i remember reading something that zoas need that light in order to grow.

Can anyone confirm or refute this?

 

[johnny]

Zoas need light and nutrients to survive. You could have used lights anywhere from 5k to 20k and would have been fine. They all have different colors going from red to purple.

Nick

 

[dcortes19]

Sorry if this is a stupid question but the actinic lights i received only said 420 Coral Bulb T5 HO 24W. What does the 420 stand for and do the actinic bulbs have a rating of anywhere between the 5000k and 20000k you said zoas need? Say if i ran 4 of the actinic bulbs would that be enough light for them to grow?

 

[SIR PATRICK]

420nm. Actinic is rated at nm instead of k ratings. Stands for nanometers. Used for measuring very small wavelenghts of light.

 

[johnny]

I'm not a t5 expert by any means, more a MH guy... but while I've seen all actinic tanks, the generally excepted school of thought is the lower the K value the better the growth... with that being said polyps don't need as much light as many other corals and there are plenty of tanks out there with 20k lights that grow very nice corals. My suggestion would be to find a color (k value combo) that you find aesthetically pleasing and use that. People get very fixated on lighting in this hobby while water quality is often a much larger issue.

Four steps to success:
Alkalinity maintained between 8-10 EVERY day
Calcium maintained above 400
Salinity maintained between 1.023 and 1.028
Tank temperature maintained between 76 and 80

While these aren't the only way to do things, I've found if you can nail these four steps DAILY your reef will flourish.

Nick

 

[jeff@zina.com]

I decided on the ATI or Geissmann bulbs only problem is i cant find any in 22". The smallest they have is 24".

24" is 22".

T5 bulbs come in 2 foot, 3 foot, 4 foot, 6 foot and 8 foot lengths. The bulbs are several inches shorter than the fixtures, but are sold as "24 inch" because that's the fixture they fit. The only fixture you can buy that there are no bulbs sized for is 30". A 30" fixture uses 24" bulbs.

There are newer, nano-sized bulbs and fixtures now too.

Jeff

 

[dcortes19]

Dont know how to quote more then one person on a reply still new to the forum so...

Sir Patrick- thanks for letting me know what the 420 stand for!

Nick- Thanks for the info about lighting and water quality! I'm gonna keep a closer eye of those 4 daily steps you posted!

Jeff- Wow i had no idea and here i was killing myself trying to find good quality bulbs!!! Now i know for next time thanks a lot.

Thank you to all, i have learned a lot so far! :beer::beer:

Anyone else who wants to share what lighting and combination of bulbs they have that are showing some good colors and growth on your zoas please feel free 2!:thumbsup: