Lighting advice for a mixed reef

[Dave & Monica]

Don’t you hate when you get a frag and it doesn’t have the color of the colony it came from? I have a hard time with two colors, blue and red.

Setup:
4 36” T5s on icecap 660 - 2 actinic, 1 aqua sun, and one white actinic (12K) -- on at 10am, off at 5pm
2 HQI halides 150W Phoenix 14K’s - on at 2pm, off at 10pm (I like the blue hue and the shimmer is why T5's come off first.

What I was thinking is to place all the T5’s as actinic– on at 10am and off at 10pm – then have the halide on at 2pm and off at 9pm

What do you think? Would the actinic's help with the color? Issue with not having 10K end of the spectrum?

I'm planning to upgrade the 150's to 250's this winter, not sure at that time if I should do things different like 20K halides and different T5 combo

I appreciate your thoughts

 

[Dave & Monica]

I guess I figured it out - I went to the tank of the month and reviewed the last 10-12 months setups.

 

[68RUSTANG]

I like the dusk to dawn of just running the actinics. Due to algae problems this summer I cut down the light schedule to:

12:00 PM Actinics on (2 5' URI Super Actinics 140W each).

1:00 PM Center 250W Halide 14K Aquamaxx on.

2:00 PM Two end 400W Halides 14k Aquamaxx on.

8:00 PM Two end off.

8:30 PM Center off.

9:00 PM Actinics off.


I like it so much, that I'll probably leave it this way for awhile. Corals seem to like it also, no noticeable slowing of growth or coloration.

 

[68RUSTANG]

What type of corals are you having troulble with the coloration?