Setting up new lighting for reef tank?

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brittanysmith18

New member
I currently have a 55 gallon saltwater tank. I recently bought a live rock that has MULTIPLE corals on it as a new addition. I've never had corals before, but I've had anemones in the past. I have a Coralife lighting fixture right now. 2 of the bulbs are burnt out, but it had 3 daylight bulbs and 1 actinic bulb in it. The light has been burnt out for awhile. I'm currently waiting for a new fixture that is T5 HO lighting where each bulb has separate switches and has 2 actinic and 2 10K daylight bulbs in it at 216W. I am wondering if this is good for a rose bubble tip anemone? I have had one in the past, but it died after about a month and I'm assuming it was due to my lighting being that the bulbs got old and they're pretty dull now, but my new corals are doing really well after this week. I've had condylacti anemones as well and they died fairly quickly as well. I fed them correctly, had perfect tank parameters, but I know my lighting was probably not too good. Just curious if this new lighting fixture will be good for a few new additions. I am going to attempt to breed my clownfish, so I would really love for everything to be perfect for them.
 
Get a good T5HO fixture like ATI,TEK, or AQUATICLIFE and put good bulbs in it like ATI bulbs.
This will go along way, change the bulbs after a year max.
 
It has to do with the ballasts, and the reflectors. ati and tek have good ballasts and great reflectors. these really boost the output over others.
 
Which bulb is beneficial for the corals and anemones? Is it the daylight bulb or the actinic bulb? How long should I leave the lights on during the day? I usually turn them off completely before sleeping as the tank is in my bedroom, but I can leave the blue lights on, the white lights are extremely bright.
 
Which bulb is beneficial for the corals and anemones? Is it the daylight bulb or the actinic bulb? How long should I leave the lights on during the day? I usually turn them off completely before sleeping as the tank is in my bedroom, but I can leave the blue lights on, the white lights are extremely bright.
 
Britt check out reef geek. They have some tek lights on great special. they also have ATI bulbs. You could get a tek 4 bulb 54 watt fixture. If not, you could put in ATI bulbs into the fixture you have. your live rock will be fine with what you have coming from ebay. Put everything on a timers. no more than 7 or 8 hours full strength, blue bulbs on hour before and an hour after full lighting. start with full light for 4 hours and work your lights up to 6 hours full light. start there and see how you do. There is a big difference in the bulbs and fixtures. so please only buy lower light to medium light corals. no clams. You could check out the t5 thread here for the bulb mix. Im kinda new at t5's myself. i made the switch from halides after I saw a reef tek fixture with ATI bulbs. Good luck. I see your new here. If theres any advice my 22 years of reef keeping can give you is this. RO/DI water, Get a really good Skimmer, Buy good lights. Save your money and buy the good stuff. It will save money and headaches in the future. The skimmer should be for 2 or 3 times your tank volume, and the good ones aren't cheap. before you buy stuff ask here. sometimes your LFS only knbows products they sell and sometimes those products aren't that good.
 
Thanks! I just don't want to buy a bunch of corals and they die on me! I think they're beautiful. I've had great luck with my fish, and just want to move onto something bigger with corals, and breeding my clowns! I would like to add an anemone asap. Are the light bulbs I have now sufficient for an anemone? or should I replace them?

I haven't used T5's either, so this is my first time with them!
 
I think you will be fine with the fixture you bought I bought a cheap one for my 55 gallon and loved it so did my corals (was running halides before) all my coral grew tremendously and never had a problem with the fixture never tried an anemone under them but had every type of coral thrive under them
 
Thanks! I thought so too because the light bulbs are very strong. I am putting acrylic lids over them as soon as I have them specially cut. What do you feed your corals? I feed anemones krill, but the coral I have doesn't seem to like it, so I have been putting the liquid food in the tank, but don't want to raise nitrate levels.
 
Your pic of the green hairy mushroom isn't getting enough light, they not need a lot but it could be raised up a few inches and it should be directly under the bulbs/reflectors or the light it will receive in comparison is tremendously lower.
 
Your blue tang has hole in the head. Vary his diet and add some selcone to his food. Are you giving him seaweed? How about new life spectrum pellets. nice looking tank. tell me aout your skimmer and your RO/DI unit.
 
I changed the light two days ago, could it be that it just hasn't had time to adapt to the new, stronger light? my other lamp had 2 burnt out bulbs as well as 2 bulbs that were over a year old, and instead of buying bulbs, I just got a new lamp..

My blue tang had ich 3 years ago, and it got so bad that I had to scrape her with a butter knife (store suggested it) and she lived. She looks pretty scruffy from it, but I do vary her diet from spirulina, krill, the protein flakes from ocean nutrition, sometimes seaweed and shrimps.
 
Michigan Mike said:
Your pic of the green hairy mushroom isn't getting enough light, they not need a lot but it could be raised up a few inches and it should be directly under the bulbs/reflectors or the light it will receive in comparison is tremendously lower.
Click to expand...



I totally just re-read what you said and understand now. I plan on adding larger pieces of live rock (they are quarantined right now as my previous rocks were infested with bristle worms) and will be stacking. I will probably put them in this weekend as it's been close to a week and I really haven't seen any parasites or hitchhikers on the rocks (I did thoroughly check before purchasing). I know anemones do this, but will the corals move if they are unhappy with their location? How do I add frags to my new rocks that I will be adding?

Thanks for all your help!
 
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