Looking for some advice and info here.
I have a 24" 6 lamp T-5 for my 37g. It is the aquatic life fixture. I think the tank is 24 in deep. Fixture is tank mounted with bulbs about 3" from surface.
My bulbs are
1 ATI AquaBlue special
2 ATI Blue Plus
3 ATI True Actinic 03
I run the actinics about 8 hours per day, and the Aquablue special and Blue Plus about 5 hours per day. This tank has been up about two months now. The first corals I bought were a favia, a fungia plate, and a Blasto.
The Blasto is basically is 2" from the bottom, the Favia is mounted on the LR about 4" from bottom. The fungia is on the sand.
The favia bleached badly after going in tank. At that time I had the photoperiod at about 10 hours per day for all bulbs. The fungia also bleached pretty badly.The Blast never really did inflate since I got it. It did not bleach though. I thought they were getting too much light so I cut back the Aquablue and the Blue Plus back to only 5 hours / day. Since then, the color in the Fungia is looking good again, the Favia is on the mend as well. The Blasto still doesn't open, but doesn't look any worse.
I want to add some more LPS and some SPS like Monticap and the hardier SPS varieties. Is this lighting to strong? I never had these issues when I used a 150W halide with PC actinics on this tank. I bought the T-5's because I liked the lower power consumption and less heat.
I think they are sunburning my tank though. Would different bulb assortment help? At this photopoeriod do I have enough light for SPS. Seems like If I lengthen my photoperiod for SPS I will burn my LPS.