New 75gal SW (lighting advice needed)

[Andari]

Ok so I"m always begging for trouble. Because we hate trying to maintain the Tall 47gal SW we have we decided to upgrade to a 75gal that is 48".

Here's what I did so far.

I made 15 trips to the shoppette for R/O water using a 5gal jug.

Added heater.

Added crushed coral as a base with Fine white sand covering.

My Filter is a Rena Filstar XP2 that we moved over from our old tank. We hope that this will help speed along the cycling process.

My husband has decided that we want to start working with corals and inverts so we bought AQUALIGHT Brand Deluxe Series - Double linear strip lighting. Problem is I'm not absolutely sure on how I'm suppose to use it.

It has Two Coralife Actinic and two 10,000K compact fluorescent lamps in the fixture. I've read about people using different types of lighting throughout the day. This lighting I can set to use the bulbs seperately. I'm not sure when I should use the diff types. My rather expensive lighting didn't come with a info guide. Are these high enough intensity, I hope so because the tank lights up my living room like crazy.

I've put in my shrimp and I'm starting my fishless cycling now. More info and pics to come along shortly.

 

[Steven Pro]

I would set the lights on a timer so that the blue/actinic lighting is one for above 13 hours while the white/daylight lighting is on for 12 and such that the blue comes on 1/2 hour before the white and lasts for 1/2 hour afterwards.

As to whether or not the light is intense enough, that all depends on what you want to keep.

 

[melosu58]

It sounds like you have a medium light system. I do to. Check out my gallery to see my corals that are soft and lps corals. You should be able to have mostly the same.

 

[Tomd]

That is probably not a bad fixture as Melosu58 said for low-medium light corals, however if you could still take it back, T5 HO, or VHO is really a better option.

You can keep more and the bulbs do not need to be replaced as frequently. PC bulbs need replacing roughly every 6 months.

If you go T5 individual reflectors is the best.

 

[Andari]

Ya it's just to bad I couldn't afford T5 HO lights
I think I'll be happy with the lower req corals. I'm really excited to be able to do corals at all. I'll just make sure I find out what they need.

 

[Tomd]

That is good I am sure you will enjoy it. For the future if you ever change T5 can actually be cheaper to buy.

 

[roka64]

I have a comment on the CC/sand. Remember the CC will end up on the top and needs a good schedule for vacuuming. It will also limit your clean up crew/sand stirrers/sifters. I did the same thing and ended up taking out the CC. The problem was, I had a fully stocked tank! LOL! BUT, this is just a personal preference. There are folks that love CC or even bare bottomed tanks.
Lighting is also a personal preference, I only run mine 8 hours. Again, there are folks that like to run them longer. I like to try to keep it as natural as possible, the critters (I know, a lot of them we get are tank bred), in the ocean (depending on location) can have 12+ hours of natural light and in other places, only about 8 hours of light.

 

[Andari]

I didn't realize that eventually all the sand would sink under the CC. I thought I added enough sand already that it had filled in an on top of the CC. Guess I'll see if I can use a strainer to get it out.