Lighting Question

[ChrisJackie]

I have a 75 gallon tank with two 48' blue Actinic VHO bulbs and two white Actinic VHO bulbs. I need to replace them. Any recomendations on replacement and a good place to purchase them online. I have mostly fish and live rock with a few soft corals. The bulbs I have come with the tank and are about a year old.

Thanks in Advance

Chris

 

[Bang Guy]

Often the LFS is the best place because of the shipping cost unless you buy in quantity. I usually buy my bulbs from Champion though.

I've noticed that most people replace their bulbs all at once. I believe this needlessly stresses the corals. You're going from used up bulbs to bulbs brighter than normal because of the break-in period.

I would suggest evenly spacing your replacements throughout the year. For you it would be every 3 months. A piece of tape on the endcap & a sharpie are good to write the due date on.

 

[Gauge]

I think Bang Guy might have a point, but it's not really critical in my opinion. I would buy them all at once online to conserve shipping costs, and if you do want to adjust the lights gradually you can either put them all in and run the lights fewer hours at first or replace a bulb every few days or so.

As far as online sources go, I look at both captivereefs.com, which is one of our sponsers, and hellolights.com. Both are good sources. The gentleman at captivereefs.com was very nice and had great communication.