Little more help with photo acclimation

[Brisc0]

Okay, need another go round on photo acclimation. I have had the halides in for five days now. The 03's are not on because I was sent a bad ballast. However I moved the fixture down 2 inches on day 3 because im running 2hrs on 2hrs off. So right now I am at 14.5" above the water line. Okay now for my question. There is no adverse response at all in my tank. To the contrary everything seems so much happier now. Is the 1" a week rule mandate or should I drop the lights when im comforatable and confident that doing so will not be disasterous? My target is 8" so I have some play left to go as it is. If I need to chill out someone just tell me so. Thanks for working with me on this. I want to do it right, but after Kevins post a few weeks ago I am also very paranoid. Take care.

What I would honestly do and is better IMO is get some window screen.. Enought to do 3 or 4 layers over the top of the tank.. Put the lights down where they are going to be and set the length that they are going to be ran.. The window screen will shade the tank... Every few days/Week I would remove one layer... If you notice any adverse reactions add a layer back.. I have successfully went from 330w PC lights to 2x250w MH and 2x55w PC actinics using this method without any issues... The corals get the full light without any breaks or being blasted with alot of light for a short period of time.. I believe A. Calfo came up with this method as a better method for photo acclimation...

HTH<
James

[WarOrks15]

i idd that in my fw tank whn i got some plants in it. it worked out great. have not done it to my sw reef yet. i just kick back the time a lot and then once a week kick iup 1 houre. i only have pc so it is a little different.

[reefrunner69]

Raising the lights and using window screen are the same, it may be easier in some instances but it is not better I personally would not mix methods. Raising the lights does not call for a shortened photoperiod and you could very well cause issues by mixing. Corals can take a few hours to ramp up to bleaching, so the 2 hours on 2 hours off (in combination with raising the lights) will not let you gauge whether the increased intensity is having adverse effects or not.

[Brisc0]

Okay, I am going to let them run from 9a.m. to 6p.m. today and keep an eye on everyone. Thanks for the help.

[Brisc0]

Well I ran them all day long, a full 10 hours and everything is just fine. Thanks again everyone.