lighting for an sps tank

[didimcginty]

I have started to collect some sps corals in the past couple of months and was wondering what others where using for lighting on their tanks, i have a 90 gallon tank that has been running for 4 years, i got into coral a little over a year ago, i have a 12 gallon sump and a 20 gallon long tank as a refugium filled with 3 10 lb bags of miracle mud and full of macro algae, the refug has been running for two yrs now. my parematers and stuff
ph-8.4
amonia, nitrite, and nitrate-0
kh-12
calcium 460
magnesium=1500( a little high)
lighting - 6 t5 48" 54 watt bulbs
an mj delphum fixture w/ 2 true ati actinics, 2 blue ati bulbs, two ati 12k blue spectrum white bulbs,
have about 7 sps corals and my acro is bleaching, as well as part of my pocillopora, they all reside at the top of the tank now, i slowly acclimated them to the light when i first bought them all.
so now i am wondering if my problem is my lighting. it seems that most sps dominated tanks are using metal halide lighting, from what i read, i might be wrong so i figured i would ask the experienced
thanks

 

[mike_cmu04]

The light is not the problem you can keep sps with t5's how old are your bulbs old bulbs can cause bleaching. Also your alk is high it should be down around 9 that can cause probs also.

 

[didimcginty]

bulbs are 3 months old, i always thought aLk should be between 9-12, sps needed more alk and calcium, i will lower and see what happens, this morning it lost much more, thank you for the response

 

[didimcginty]

how often should i change out my t5 bulbs to keep the sps corals happy, i was told they have a longer life than other bulbs, i am new to sps and any help is appreciated
thanks

 

[Dog boy Dave]

I would NOT go out and buy new lights right away m8. Based on the bit of history that you have shared, your problems are most likely due to nutrient issues. Can you post an image of your tank?
Regards

 

[didimcginty]

here are some pics as requested, what nutrients do i need for a succesful sps tank, i lost the acro i was trying to save, i fraged of the good pieces yesterday and the where done today,
thank you for your help

 

[Allmost]

I change my T5s every 8 months or so, but I'm sure they can go up to 10-12 months as well. KZ has the highest par reading if you wanted to know in future.


what do you test your no3 and po4 with ? if you use a salifert test kit for no3, it goes down to 0.2 PPM so u can get a better feel of the no3 values.

but with a Fuge that big, I doubt the nutritions made your acro RTN, so next thing in line would be to check your flow around the SPS pieces. (I found issues with RTN mostly come around due to low flow(low oxygen), or unstable KH)

 

[Dave71]

FWIW - I agree with others, lighting does not appear to be cause.

Alk being high could be the culprit.

Also noticed you have some nice size leathers in the tank.

It has been said, although never fully confirmed, that leathers and SPS are not a good combo...especially large leathers.

Not sure if you are running carbon, but this can potentially help with that issue...assuming it is one.

 

[didimcginty]

i test everything with the ati test kits, except magnesium, i believe the kit i have is the sailfert, its in the white case and is quite involved, i am in the process of lowering the kh to 9, is 460 ok for calcium?
flow is- the main pump 1100 gph constant from sump, two koralia 1400 on a wavemaker and a closed loop 3/4 scuid on a gen x 1100 gph. the koralias turn off at 10pm and come back on at 7am
the closed loop and the main pump are always on. the birds nest, digitata, pocillopora, monti, chalice, and other two unidentified acro's seem to be ok, all white at the tips (growth from what ive read), and nice polyp extension. though they are all tiny frags, the acro i just lost was an $80 colony, much bigger than the others, i want to keep adding sps corals, i like the way sps domintated tanks look so i appreciate all your help in educating me in being succesful

 

[AC-WEB]

SPS lighting question

SPS lighting question

I'm am upgrading from a 46 gallon tank to a 75 gallon tank. I currently have a 36 inch odyssea metal halide fixture with 2x175w 14k lights and 2x65 compacts. I was hoping to use it for the 75 gallon tank, but my fans stopped working and would run too hot to be placed in a canopy. The canopy for the 75 gallon has 4x96w Current compacts. Would that be enough lights for sps coral and clams?

AC-WEB

 

[AC-WEB]

Whoops, meant to post this as a new thread. mod, please delete.