Getting my new lights today

[watermydoing]

Anyone had any mistakes upgrading lights that i can learn from.
Currently have a dual t5 (108w) total on my 72 bow, my new 4 bulb coralife fixture (216w)should be on my doorstep when i get home. Have LR in there with a mushroom polyp who seems to be fine at the moment and have green star polyp and green mushroom who are curently opend and look good except there brown, not green but im hoping that will change with new lights. Im afraid of bad algea bloom or freaking the inhabitants out? Any suggestions to acclimating tank to new light other than slapping it up there with double the watts?

 

[stingythingy45]

What bulbs are in the new fixture?Are 2 actinic and 2 10k?
Does it have two cords?
You could run just two lights at first and then bring the others on with a short light cycle and slowly bring it up over time.

Also could start out with the fixture high above the tank and lower it over time.
Some use window screens over the tank,but that sounds like a pain.

 

[ChrisKey]

I don't think a T5 light over a 72g tank will cause any sort of burning to corals or upset fish. They just don't have the same intensity as LEDs or Metal halides. If you are worried about your algae, just cut the photo period a little for a few days.

 

[watermydoing]

yes 2 cords

 

[Michigan Mike]

Buy good bulbs like ATI, that will make your fixture 100% better than it is now.
2 blue plus
1 coral plus
1 purple plus

Way better looking than the crap bulbs that came with your coralife fixture.

 

[watermydoing]

Ok lights installed. Question is am i supposed to run the 2 10k's during the day with the 2 actics? Then swith to 2 actics at dusk then the just the leds throught the nite?

 

[Rustafar]

Mine are on timers, The the Blues on a hour before my Daylights come on, then run them both through the day and then later timer shuts off the Daylights and then Blues only for a hour. LEDs on 10 minute before the blues shut off. You don't need the leds on all night.I run mine for 2 hours.
Russ.

 

[bshow24]

Like Russ said, run the actinic first. I usually run my actinic for about 10 hours (10-8) and then run my daylight bulbs for 6-8 depending on the day (usually 12-6 or 7).

Algae may be spurred because algae grows a lot better in the actinic light, but if you have something to control your phosphates and your nitrates are low, should not really be an issue.

As was mentioned, go for ATI bulbs. That setup that was given to you has a nice 15k look to it, not extremely blue but blue enough to give you some color (this could be why your mushroom looks brown, when you see it under actinic, you will see that it is actually green).

Sounds like you got a good fixture now and maybe get a few more corals under it too!

 

[Michigan Mike]

I just run all my bulbs all the time.
I run 2 blue plus, 1 KZ purple & 1 actinic so it looks good all the time,lol.
To me it does (avatar)

I run my bulbs for around 7-8 hours a day.

 

[HUNTER1]

I believe actinic doesn't accelerate algae more than white lights. Am I right?

 

[Michigan Mike]

I believe actinic doesn't accelerate algae more than white lights. Am I right?

Its more of a excess nutrient problem but the red spectrum tends to help increase algal growth. Old bulbs lose their blue spectrum so that can help algal growth if there is excess nutrients.

 

[watermydoing]

Ok, my model is the coralife lunar aqualight ho t5, the bulbs came in a seperate box, so i had to install myself. I have the staggered, 1 day, 1 blue, 1 day, 1 blue. And i think its correct beacause when i turn off one power switch both days go off and then the other switch turns off the blues. Does that sound right? And yes the brown mushrooms are incredibley green with just the blues on but stay brown when all on at same time. I was hoping they would remain green when all are on. I also noticed last night when i only had the leds on, all my fish seemed to be fightig over territory and there normally very pleasant with each other, now that may just be because ive never see what they do when the lights are off. Not sure. So ill try the 2 blues 2 hrs before the days then turn off the days after 8 hrs and let the blues stay on 2 hrs longer than the days then turn on the leds when the blues go out.

 

[watermydoing]

Are the ati blue plus the daylights? And the purple and actnic the blues?

 

[MrClam]

Its more of a excess nutrient problem but the red spectrum tends to help increase algal growth. Old bulbs lose their blue spectrum so that can help algal growth if there is excess nutrients.

Apologies if I misunderstood you but actinic lights are concentrated near the UV end of the spectrum. They have no red in them.

Yes algea growth is going to be more pronounced under daylight (full spectrum) bulbs. Actinic bulbs have very little energy in the photosynthetic range of the spectrum so will do less to encourage algea or coral growth.

 

[Michigan Mike]

Apologies if I misunderstood you but actinic lights are concentrated near the UV end of the spectrum. They have no red in them.

Yes algea growth is going to be more pronounced under daylight (full spectrum) bulbs. Actinic bulbs have very little energy in the photosynthetic range of the spectrum so will do less to encourage algea or coral growth.

Correct, old bulbs will shift spectrum to encourage alga growth.

I'd do some cleaning, water changes, and add GFO type or phosphate removing media if your having algae problems, I know I battle with it.

 

[bshow24]

I have had the opposite occur actually.

I have 2 tanks so it is easy to see this. When my 8 gallon had a 10k bulb, I had little to no algae growth (still get very little under 14k bulb) but my 28 gallon which was under actinic lighting only at the time, had algae growth increase, I was cleaning the class almost 3 times a week in order to see (and feeding was same on both, and both tanks are connected to the same sump and reactor so they both have the same exact conditions)

After getting my 10k bulb fixed for my fixture, algae growth slowed. I was intrigued by this and read up and found that algae growth is not suppose to occur as quickly under actinic only, but oh well, my tank is weird! must explain why my clowns are so crazy.

Back to the question watermydoing asked...I use the blue plus as actinic, and the purp and coral plus as my daylights. Although, if you want to run more blue and see the green of that mushroom all the time, you could also look into getting a blue plus instead of a coral plus. So your fixture would be:

blue plus
blue plus
purple plus
blue plus

but that is completely up to you and how you want it. Maybe buy an extra blue plus and a coral plus and test out what you like. If you like it with the coral, then you have another blue plus when the others burn out, if not, just sell that bulb to someone who may want it! Easy enough. It is all about testing out different stuff to see what you like. Mike has 3 blueish bulbs in his, and you can see that very nice blue effect that brings out the coral colors.