How would you configure these ligts?

[smooth_rivers]

Buying new is not an option right now.

55 (48 in) gal with fish and live rock, DSB, some mushrooms and polyps, 1 leather coral.

Right now I have the 48in light, that takes 2 24in bulbs with 2 coralife 50/50s. I have a 36 in dual flor also on this tank with 1 30in 65k atinic and 1 65k daylight. Coraline is ok, but not really expanding. Am thinking that changing the bulb config would help with growth.

Both of these are normal flor light sets.

Any ideas appreciated.

 

[steve-s]

If I understand your description properly all these lights are already on the tank, you just want to re-arrange the layout

Not really necessary and won't have much effect on the growth of coralline. Coralline will respond better to water chemistry maintenance as well as bulb spectrum. Light intensity has nothing to contribute.

If you have lower light corallines like green, light pink, orange or red they will prefer lower output lights in the 6500k range.

The highly desired (by some) purple coralline will repond better to higher (bluer) kelvin bulbs at 10,00k+. They will actually respond the best to "true" actinics.

Since your lights seem to somewhat cover these area's of the spectrum, I would think the chemistry may not be optimum for growth. Alk, Ca and magnesium levels must be maintained. It will also help if you spore the tank by slightly scraping the existing coralline to release it into the water column and allowing it to spread. Turning off the skimmer would be best for a hour or so while doing so as it will pull the spores out of the water.

You could also greatly speed things up with a few pounds of Garf Grunge

Cheers
Steve

 

[loganj]

Agreed. I maintain a 75g with two 40w bulbs and the coraline is growing like crazy in there.