Not happy with my lighting

[LanginJoe]

Hey everyone, I am having problems with what I think is my lighting. First here is the setup:

150 gallons with 2x250 MH and 4x65 PC, I plan on getting another 250 in the near future. Anyway, every SPS I put into the tank changes to either brown or green. When I got the MH's they came with 15k so I switched to supposedly 10k from Coralife which were a lot more blue than I was aiming for. I am still having the same problem though, the softies, LPS's and anemone are doing great, even the SPS's are growing well, they just lost their nice coloring. Should I try different bulbs, if so what company? I would like to have the MH's doing the white while the PC'c to the actinic.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Oh yeah, the MH are on for about 8-9 hours a day, and the PC's about an hour before and after.

 

[Justjoe]

Re: Not happy with my lighting

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9240540#post9240540 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by LanginJoe
Hey everyone, I am having problems with what I think is my lighting. First here is the setup:

150 gallons with 2x250 MH and 4x65 PC, I plan on getting another 250 in the near future. Anyway, every SPS I put into the tank changes to either brown or green. When I got the MH's they came with 15k so I switched to supposedly 10k from Coralife which were a lot more blue than I was aiming for. I am still having the same problem though, the softies, LPS's and anemone are doing great, even the SPS's are growing well, they just lost their nice coloring. Should I try different bulbs, if so what company? I would like to have the MH's doing the white while the PC'c to the actinic.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Oh yeah, the MH are on for about 8-9 hours a day, and the PC's about an hour before and after.

Could also be nutrient levels, if your PO4's or NO3's are elevated, you will lose the color of your acros as the excess nutrients fuel the zooxanthellae and your corals will darken up, which is another way of saying they are losing their color.
I usually go with XM or Ushio on the 250's, especially the XM's if you have some supplemental blue lighting as they have lots of PAR.
Joe

 

[diverrad]

I think your lighting is fine with 250s you should be keeping color well, I would look towards your water quality more. I don't have exp with Corallife bulbs so perhaps go with XM or alot of people like Coralvue bulbs, I think Tony sells them, but in the end color has more to do with water than light, i'm keeping sps with great color with only t5s

 

[LanginJoe]

Thanks a lot for your advice, I will check out the water quality tonight, I know thw Nitrates are ok, but I have not checked the Phos in a bit.

 

[Spracklcat]

Keep us posted--would like to see you succeed.

 

[olemos]

Bring a small bottle with water from your tank to the meeting on Saturday, I belive they will be doing phosphate tests there.

 

[LanginJoe]

Well my Phos tester (Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) reads 0ppm and my Nitrate is reading about 5ppm. I'm sure the test kits are inferior, so I'll be sure to bring some water with me to the next meeting. I think I might order a set of XMs come next paycheck too.