Coral light 101 help please!

[dragonfisher33]

so i'm new to the saltwater fish keeping hobby and i just got myself a power compact JBJ light for my 30gal tank. It's got one actinic light and one daylight. The extent of my light knowledge when it comes to SW is that lunar light is really for your viewing pleasure but i have no idea what the actinic light and the white light do to the corals. can someone lend me some crash course or advice on what their purpose is? Does the order of which i turn on each one of the light matter? for instance, should i turn on actinic light one hr before the daylight? and do i turn everything off during the night?

i'm new to corals and i don't know much about them. so i think a kenya tree would be hardy enough to get my hands wet (i know it's quite aggressive)

 

[dragonfisher33]

i also heard that for power compact fixtures, you would need to replace the bulbs every so many months, is that true? what determines the longevity of the bulbs? i only got the PC bulb fixture because it was really dirt cheap and something i can play around a bit before i go full-throttle into the reef side of SW. i understand i will need to replace it with better light later on but for now i hope it's good enough for beginner corals

 

[Budda619]

so i'm new to the saltwater fish keeping hobby and i just got myself a power compact JBJ light for my 30gal tank. It's got one actinic light and one daylight. The extent of my light knowledge when it comes to SW is that lunar light is really for your viewing pleasure but i have no idea what the actinic light and the white light do to the corals. can someone lend me some crash course or advice on what their purpose is? Does the order of which i turn on each one of the light matter? for instance, should i turn on actinic light one hr before the daylight? and do i turn everything off during the night?

i'm new to corals and i don't know much about them. so i think a kenya tree would be hardy enough to get my hands wet (i know it's quite aggressive)

Lunar lighting is also known as accent lighting which is just for visual effects. Actinic mimics dusk and dawn while your day light stays on majority of the day. Recommend lights are 8-10 hrs. I like to turn my actinics on a hr before the whites and stay on till a hr after the white lights go out. Hence dusk and dawn. Ur tank will need a quiet time where all the lights are off. Some people tend to leave their lunar lights on all night but i wouldnt recommend that as some animals are nocturnal. I use my lunar lights just to show off.

 

[Budda619]

i also heard that for power compact fixtures, you would need to replace the bulbs every so many months, is that true? what determines the longevity of the bulbs? i only got the PC bulb fixture because it was really dirt cheap and something i can play around a bit before i go full-throttle into the reef side of SW. i understand i will need to replace it with better light later on but for now i hope it's good enough for beginner corals

Pc should do fine for kenya trees as they can adapt to the lighting. About 8months to a year the spectrum of the light changes which will cause issues with algae and cyano . They also tend to put out some heat so watch your temp. When you upgrade get leds. I got pcs and i have a mixed reef. Everything is doing great for me but will upgrade when i upgrade my tank

 

[dragonfisher33]

Pc should do fine for kenya trees as they can adapt to the lighting. About 8months to a year the spectrum of the light changes which will cause issues with algae and cyano . They also tend to put out some heat so watch your temp. When you upgrade get leds. I got pcs and i have a mixed reef. Everything is doing great for me but will upgrade when i upgrade my tank

how does the spectrum change and how can you tell that the spectrum has changed? based on the growth of the coral?

 

[dragonfisher33]

if the lighting schedule is ~8hrs a day, are you implying that there's roughly 6hrs in a day where both the actinic light and the daylight are ON?

 

[Budda619]

if the lighting schedule is ~8hrs a day, are you implying that there's roughly 6hrs in a day where both the actinic light and the daylight are ON?

I tend to do 1hr actinic 8 hrs day 1 hr actinic. There is no way to visually see the spectrum change unless you have a meter but you will notice an algae and cyano bacteria problem. Some corals might show physical change or growth problems that is hard to tell.