Coralife Aqualight Advanced 150w HQI Clamp On

[ogredawg19]

I bought it because it was only $150 used for 3 months. Now my question is, how do I acclimate the tank with this new light. I'm using 130w of pc right now.

Also did I make a mistake by buying this light if I'm only keeping lps and soft corals?

 

[ogredawg19]

anyone?

 

[gfk]

i just turned mine on for like an hour a day for a few days, then upped it slowly.... still had some candycanes lose some heads, but theyll grow back

just do it slow

 

[fishnfst]

Have you tried the screen method.. Using any kind of thin screen like from a screen door cut a bunch of rectangles that will cover the top of your tank and slowly remove layers over a week or two... Use as many layers as you think necessary to bring the intensity back down to close to what you have now...

 

[jazzmanb]

jumping from a 130 watts of pc lighting to 150 watts of halide isnt a huge jump...it will enhance corals growth and color dramatically though..the corals might take a week or so to acclimate fully...if you ran your pcs for 8 or so hrs a day, i would run the hallides for 4 hrs for the first week,then add an hour every couple of days after that until your back to your normal light cycle...

 

[ogredawg19]

Yeah, I might do the photo period method. But how many layers of screens are we talking about though, incase I choose that route fishnfst?

Thanks for the response everyone. So did you get mh setup too jazzman?

 

[jazzmanb]

yeah i had to get halide for my 40 gallon....the funny thing about my halide is that there is no heat what so ever coming from the fixture...of course i have a really good fan on it...the hallides make such a difference...my lighting scedule is 10 a.m[175 watt 14k halide turns on] 1:45p.m 130 watt pcs turn on] 2:30[halide turns off] 7p.m pcs off, nocturnal leds on.....so bassically i my lighting cycle consists of 9 hrs of total lighting roughly [4 hrs. halide] [5 hrs. pc]...i have around 20 various corals[some high light,some low] and a total of 8 fish[sailfin tang,gold stripe maroon clown,dwarf flame angel,six line wrasse,3 green chromis,firefish....and various inverts and a cleaner shrimp...my tank looks amazing and everything is extremly healthy at the moment...i also bought a uv sterilizer a couple months back,and it is amazing.....

 

[ogredawg19]

Here it is everyone, I recieved the light today! It's great so far except that I think the light could be a little bit more blue. I'll start looking for 20k 150w hqi. I'm doing the photo period method, hopefully I don't kill any corals. It's funny because my clownfish got scared the first time I put it in so he started looking for a shaded area and so went underneath the powerhead.

Do you guys think the light is set too high?

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Oh yeah my dog found a new spot to get sunlight
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[ogredawg19]

BTW has anyone tried these bulbs before? They're pretty cheap

http://cgi.ebay.com/HQI-150W-20K-DE...ryZ46314QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Unarce]

Oh yeah my dog found a new spot to get sunlight

You better turn him over! Looks like he's getting burned on that side!:lol:

 

[ogredawg19]

Lol I know. Oh it's a "she" by the way.

But yeah about the bulbs. What are the disadvantages of cheap bulbs like the one on the link?

 

[dots]

The color will burn in and shift a little, you may want to wait on making that color change until then. If you want a bluer 14k try the phoenix......on the 150w DE its just about 20K se looks on 14k PAR. Looks great!!

 

[ogredawg19]

so you think buying cheap bulb is just a waste of money? I was going to get 20k for just a little over $20 after shipping.

 

[dots]

It would probably shift in a week. I think youll be happy with the Phoenix, very popular bulb.