Lighting!

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

lstimpy

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 20, 2014
Messages
197
Location
Wesley Chapel, FL
I have a 65 gallon that is almost two months old. My parameters are sg .025, cal 440, Kh 10, pH 8.2, temp 79, no amm nitrite or phos, no nitrate but I carbon dose so I'm trying to bump it up a little. I have 2 black occillarus, 1 six line, 1 coral beauty (I know!), 3 dispar anthias, 1 randalls goby, 1 helfrichi firefish, a maxima clam, goniopora, frogspawn, bubble corals, zoas, acans, clove polyps, just got a birds nest and an acro frag, placed up high, plus a few hermits and snails.... The tank is looking gorgeous, all fish and corals are happy, hungry, great. The thing is that I have two current orbit marine 36-48" led fixtures that I run on the preset full intensity 12 hour setting. After reading so much about being "under-lit" I ordered an aquatic life edge 36" fixture. This fixture has around the same amount of LEDs, but twice the wattage, which is still only 1/2 watt per led. I programmed it and had it running at full intensity yesterday afternoon. An hour later all my lps were flabby and looked terrible. My favorite gonipora was swollen. I turned it off and put the orbits on by themselves, and today all is well again.
My concern is that if the led wattage shown for the orbits is so poor then why is all my stock looking great? Should I try to add more lighting slower or quit while I'm ahead? So confused!
 
Back
Top Bottom