Guys new to the hobby I have been in the fresh water world for years and now I've taken the plunge to salt. The tank I have was a craigslist buy from a guy that managed a LFS in my area till they shut down. He was moving to Maryland and had to let his tank go and was in firestorm sell mode. It was in need of some upgrades and TLC that I have done but now its time to start corals as its now stable and all life is happy and very colorful.
The tank is a 48x24x30 150g with a 55 sump and UV light canister. It has 180 lb of live rock most up top some in SUMP. The light was being held up by salad dressing bowls (he was a chief as well) on a warped piece of acrylic (I'm assuming warped by the heat of the bulbs). Anyway I paid a friend to build a canopy for this thing to sit on top of. Going to get it 8 inches from the water to help keep the heat from the water and might even add PC case fans to the side of the canopy (I'm a computer geek so I can wire that up).
Now the question is light. How long to leave it on? What bulbs to run at night and what to run in the day? The light I got from him was massive. 4 t5 on each side 2 halogen and 5 large blue LED. Its a ADV plus series Metal Halide Model MHADVP-48 config MH250 / T5HO. It works but this thing puts off a ton of heat.
Either way I want be sure I am not giving the coral too much light and have no damn clue if I should just run the blue LED at night. The T5 give off a blue glow too they aren't giving off white light the halogens of course is where the real light comes in. I don't want to over power the tank with light and I also don't want to rob the tank of light and how long to use the light. I have a hammer coral, rose bubble tip anemone, some kind of frog spawn, and other very small coral frags I got dirt cheap at my pretentious LFS.
I did dip and was going to put it in a QT tank but my LFS told me that QT for coral was not needed just dip and add. I will say I call them the pretentious LFS because everything they have is really top end stuff and fish I have gotten there through the years have all been really awesome quality nice fish. Thoughts on putting corals in a QT tank or just dip and go?
So again QT new coral? How long for lights on and what lights to run at what time with my current light?
Thank you for any help you can give and I did read the angry lighting post guys post but decided it wasn't going to give me the answer I needed 7 pages in when we were still talking about light spectrum.
The tank is a 48x24x30 150g with a 55 sump and UV light canister. It has 180 lb of live rock most up top some in SUMP. The light was being held up by salad dressing bowls (he was a chief as well) on a warped piece of acrylic (I'm assuming warped by the heat of the bulbs). Anyway I paid a friend to build a canopy for this thing to sit on top of. Going to get it 8 inches from the water to help keep the heat from the water and might even add PC case fans to the side of the canopy (I'm a computer geek so I can wire that up).
Now the question is light. How long to leave it on? What bulbs to run at night and what to run in the day? The light I got from him was massive. 4 t5 on each side 2 halogen and 5 large blue LED. Its a ADV plus series Metal Halide Model MHADVP-48 config MH250 / T5HO. It works but this thing puts off a ton of heat.
Either way I want be sure I am not giving the coral too much light and have no damn clue if I should just run the blue LED at night. The T5 give off a blue glow too they aren't giving off white light the halogens of course is where the real light comes in. I don't want to over power the tank with light and I also don't want to rob the tank of light and how long to use the light. I have a hammer coral, rose bubble tip anemone, some kind of frog spawn, and other very small coral frags I got dirt cheap at my pretentious LFS.
I did dip and was going to put it in a QT tank but my LFS told me that QT for coral was not needed just dip and add. I will say I call them the pretentious LFS because everything they have is really top end stuff and fish I have gotten there through the years have all been really awesome quality nice fish. Thoughts on putting corals in a QT tank or just dip and go?
So again QT new coral? How long for lights on and what lights to run at what time with my current light?
Thank you for any help you can give and I did read the angry lighting post guys post but decided it wasn't going to give me the answer I needed 7 pages in when we were still talking about light spectrum.