Monti cap placement

[Evgarrett]

I have just recently started to place coral in my tank and over the weekend I purchased some red monti cap. My phone doesn't take the best pics but right now it is located at the top.of the tank. Any recommendations on a location in my tank. I have a t5 fixture with 1 10000 K bulb and 1 actinic bulb. In the pic it's at the top looks whitish because of the lights on it in the pic but it's red otherwise. Thanks

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[moray23]

My first response was going to be to move it down because it will grow out a shade corals below. However, with just 2 t5's for lighting you may want to leave it up there at the top so that it can get as much light as possible. You will probably want to upgrade to some stronger lighting some day if you are looking at keeping sps.

 

[Evgarrett]

This is my light, I bought this before I knew much about reef keeping. It was $80, wish I knew more when I bought it.

 

[mbingha]

"Refugium ready" yup, pretty much sums it up. Your going to want to upgrade to keep that monti long term.

 

[Evgarrett]

Yeah I bought this light at a lfs and the guy told me it would work for a 30 gal, at the time I only had a 10 gal nano. Haha shows how much he knew and I guess I should have researched more. What do you recommend?

 

[Evgarrett]

Do you think it is in the correct place for now? At least until I get a new lighting setup.

 

[mbingha]

Personally, I'm a fan of led, but asking for suggestions as to what light to use is a giant can of worms lol

 

[Evgarrett]

Well my tank is a hex tank about 30" deep I've looked into leds they are just costly.

 

[mbingha]

Look into reefbreeders.

 

[mbingha]

Also any good lighting option is going to be costly...

 

[Evgarrett]

Yeah I know I need to partial trade mine or sell and get a new one

 

[mbingha]

Reefbreeders value leds are probably the cheapest lighting option for leds. Other forms I wouldn't be able to help since that's what I've researched. For halides, a 150w with some actinics would be sufficient, but you may have heat issues.

 

[Evgarrett]

Yeah I have a hood built for the tank. I could modify the hood and add fans. Have you looked into building leds?

 

[mbingha]

I have, and while it would be fun to diy (I was about to order from rapid led) but for the price, it isn't cheaper to build them, plus there's a warranty with reputable companies.

 

[Evgarrett]

I researched that a well recently and came to the same conclusion and it was hard to actually decided what leds to use.

 

[rovster]

I had a red monti at the top of my biocube with pc's and it grew fine. Eventually switched to LEDs and grew better, but nothing wrong with those lights to get your feet wet. Only problem with mounting that hig is if it does grow, it will essentially grow into a roof and shade the entire tank! Ask me how I know

 

[Evgarrett]

Yeah I have heard it will do that, I don't have much choice right now till I get a new light. Luckily I'm not permanently mounting it till I do.