Thinking of adding lights.

[pomme]

Thinking of adding lights.

I am thinking of adding some lights to my tank (eg t5s).

The tank is a 100 gal with sump, skimmer, ca reactor, kalk reactor, rowaphos reactor, 2 tunze 6000 streams and multicontroller. The lighting is a single 250 watt 14k hqi with 2 18watt actinics.

It has 100 kg if live rock and is dominated by 1 full sps colony and 6 small colonies and around 20 frags.

The water conditions are:
Temp - 27
Salininty - 1.025 or 35ppt.
Ph - 8
Am / Nitrite - 0
Nirtate - 0.1
dKH - 9
Calcium - 420
Mg - 1550
Strontium - 8
Phosphate - 0

The problem i am having is that some of the sps corals since going into the tank have gone brown, so i was thinking if i add some extra lighting to this would it help?

I was thinking of adding one of the Deltec double t5 units, http://www.deltecaquariumsolutions.com/lighting.php I was thinking of going for the aqua blue or the actinic plus with the midday 6000.

Or do you guys think a different combination would be better?

Would this help the corals from browning out by providing more light for them especially in the actinc part?

Andrew

 

[reefrunner69]

so i was thinking if i add some extra lighting to this would it help?

Maybe, maybe not. I think you could stand some more actinic light, but it will likely make the tank very blue with the 14K bulbs. The problems is the what reaction SPS will have to a change in lighting from one tank to another can be very unpredictable, even with more actinic lighting you may experience some frags going brown. Another option would be to switch your MH bulbs to 20Ks.

 

[pomme]

i could add two 150 watt double ended halides from stm or 2 250 watters:

http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/STM_Lighting_.html

with the bulbs being either 150 watt 10k, 150watt 14k, or 250 watt 20k.

http://www.stm-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Metal_Halide_lamps.html

but i would most like to get de 150 watt 20k, but will look around a bit more for these?

 

[reefrunner69]

If youve already got 250W, your going to want to replace them with 250 watters, going lower in intensity will pretty much keep you in the same boat, IMO.

 

[TheMadNucleus]

Pomme,

That Deltec site is a great - love their pumps - I'm going to contact the Florida U.S. Dealer tomorrow about them. Hope they can be imported with US plimbing sizes.

Thanks

 

[pomme]

yeah i aswell like there equipment as seems good quality but is pricey, but the best bit is that the help they give you if something goes wrong is briliant. as my pump had a fault and one phone call and i had a new pump on mydoor in 16hours.

no sorry kevin, i was meaning adding the halides i suggested to my lighting already. so if i went for the 150s, i would have:

1 x 250 watt 14 k double ended.
2 x 150 watt 20 k double ended.
2 x 18 watt actinics.
1 x 38 watt t5 actinic.

or if i went for the 250s then obviously2 x 250s 20k double ended instead of the 150 watt.

 

[reefrunner69]

What are the demensions of the tank?

 

[pomme]

its 40" by 24" wideby 28" deep

 

[reefrunner69]

On that tank, I would definitely add another halide, probably a 250W DE HQI, but at that depth, I would be thinking very seriously of increasing the lighting to 2 X 400W HQI 20K.

 

[pomme]

would you add a single 250 or two 150's?

 

[loganj]

IMO, you'd be better off to add another 250 instead of a pair of 150's. A MH bulb will give good coverage for about 2'. The problem you're going to have, as Kevin mentioned, is the depth of the tank. So, it's not so much a matter of coverage is it is penetration. The 250 will penetrate much further than the 150's will. Also, Coral Vue has some nice 20k 250w HQI bulbs. If you'll look at pics of Hara's tank, you'll see what they look like. I think she even posted some before and after pics with them. She also reported very good coral growth with these lights. If you could upgrade to 400w lights, you wouldn't have to worry about the light penetration anymore.

 

[pomme]

yeah ill look to see if my unit can take 400watters.

 

[pomme]

hiya guys,
update for you............

well i went and got two of the stm compact lights from jon forneman second hand, they have the blv 10k de 250 watt bulbs in there. the tank looks so much more brighter now , i am running the two new 250 for 1 hour each day and i will increase this by 30 mins every week, or would 5 mins a day be better?

i also got two tunze 6100 from preds (ollie) , so now i have 2x 6000 and two x 6100 on a multicontroller, they are in a bad place at the moment but i will be moving them around to different places in the future. but the amount of water movement is carzy, on the surface where the 3 tunzes meet the one tunzes flow there is like a small motionless wave on the surface its wierd ???? I have them all on 30% at the mo but will slowly increase this untill i get a level that i like

Andrew