Question on lighting...Do I have enough?

[pooh1989]

I've been reading these boards so much lately. That now I've gotten totally confused.

I bought my tank pre owned and got everything with it so it was good to go. I've been told I have very good lighting and could keep anything, but now I'm comming to the experts to find out if I really do. Before I get something and kill it.

My tank is a 46 gallon breader I've been told. And I have 2 of these Coralife Compact Fluorescent Square Pin Bulbs light fixtures on my tank. Both bulbs are the 50/50.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/Product/Prod_Display.cfm?pcatid=13313&N=2004+113346 This is the link to the exact bulbs I have.

Are these any good or should I go up or what? I don't understand all the T5's and PC's and everything else. Can someone please help me here and tell me what I got?

Thanks much

 

[JR719]

You should be able to keep soft corals, I would not try sps with those bulbs, although, it may be possible. If your doing a FO tank, those are fine.

What is your main interest in keeping?

 

[pooh1989]

Well I've probably screwed up since I was taking everyone's word for it that these were so great. I've got a hairy mushroom in there, a cody anemone, and my friend gave me 2 of her RBTA the other day cause her's keep splitting. When I got the tank there was also a bunch of polyps in there from before and they do look ok. The hairy mushrooms look good as does the cody. They have both been in there for like 3 monthes. Do I need to change and what would you suggest I change to? I'm so blonde sometimes.

Thanks again

 

[edwing206]

i would suggest going with t5's

 

[pooh1989]

Ok now my next question. What would you suggust I get. Can you please send me some links to good lighting system.

Thanks again

 

[dantodd]

I think that you have just adequate light for everything except the BTA.

The 50/50 bulbs don't have as much of the type of light that the anemone needs for photosynthesis. (It's actually a colony of plankton inside the anemone that need is photosynthetic not the anemone itself.) You can do alot simply by adding 2 more of those same bulbs (but get 10,000K bulbs in the new lights rather than 50/50 because that will supply more photosynthetic light) which should get you plenty of light for the BTAs.

 

[pooh1989]

Ok. So if I order 2 of the 10,000K bulbs for these fixtures they will work? And I won't have to order all new fixtures? I can't believe how dumb I am on this.

 

[dantodd]

There are a lot of posts on lighting in the "lighting, filtration & other equipment" forum but in short

VHO = very high output version of the large fluorescent bulbs we are used to in shop lights etc. around the house. These bulbs are T-12 sized

T-5 = A tubular bulb like T-12 but they are much thinner and the light they put out is "better" for each watt.

CF/PC = are the same thing cf = compact fluorescent and pc = power compact. These are often the cheapest per watt for very good lighting but they don't reall penetrate water as well.

Mh = metal halide. These are theoretically closest to sunight and penetrates water really well. They also put out a lot of heat and need to be off the water a little bit.

Do you know what size tank and what lighting the anemone were under before?

198 watts total of PC with just the new 10,000K bulbs may be OK, but at the very low end for the anemone. A breeder tank is shallower than similar gallonage tanks of "standard" dimensions which is why you may get away with it.

The other thing that might be a good sign for you is if the old tank has similar lighting.

If the tank it came from had Mh or a lot of other light on it the anemone will have a lot more zooxanthellae (the plankton colony I was talking about above) than the new lights can keep alive. Once the zoox start dying it can put a lot of sress on the anemone. It will likely lose some of its color if it was under brighter lights in her tank, this is an indication that the zoox is dying and being ejected by the anemone. Be sure to feed the anemones heavily as that can help the anemone deal with the lower light.

If the aneome starts shrinking or losing too much color you'd want to upgrade the lights. Either moving to T-5s or double the number of PC bulbs. You certainly could move to metal halide but it isn't needed in such a shallow tank and may be too much for some of your other soft corals.