Need advise on my lighting

[bigfishtoo]

Well here it goes, my tank is 120 gallons the measurement from bottom of lights to sand bed is 32" inches and from bottom of lights to top of live rock is 24" inches. So my corals are in a depth of 24" to 32" from bulbs.

I have for lights;
2- 175 watt 14,000
1- 110 watt vho AquaSun
1- 110 watt vho actinic white
2- 110 watt vho super actinic blue

Total of 790 watts.
My problem is I dont see much growth with my corals or any purple coralline algae growing. Do I need to upgrade to 250 watt metal halide lamps. I see all these other tanks and they look so great with coralline algae growing. My water tested;
Gravity 1.025
Phos--0
Cal--465
Alk--2.0
PH--8.2
Nitrite--0
Nitate--0
Ammonia--0

Any advise would be great, thanks.....

[ccCapt]

Your lighting is fine. What kind of reflectors are you using?
Your alk is very low....assuming that is 2 meq/l. If it's 2 dKH, that's super low. Have you tested magnesium? What brand of salt are you using?

[bigfishtoo]

Hello, I use Reef Crystals from Instant Ocean and my VHO bulbs have built in reflector and are mounted on a white standard vho light fixture. My Metal Halides are mounted in a home made fixtures made from heater duct metal.

My Alk is 2 meg/L and no I havent tested for magnesium.

What should I use to raise my Alk?
Thanks

[Ziggy953]

How long has your system been set up? Your alk is WAY low. You want to shoot for 9-11dkh. You can bring it up with kalkwasser or using a 2 part dosing system like B-ionic.

The lighting is fine and very similar to what I have over the same tank. I'm in the process of upgrading to dual 250s but I'm keeping the actinics as they are. I run 2x110 super actinic VHOs and 2x54w T5HO super actinics.

What color temp are your MH bulbs? How often are you doing water changes? What corals do you have and how long have they been in the system?

[bigfishtoo]

Hello,

My color temp is 14,000 I do water changes every week and use distilled water. Here is a list of corals;

yellow polyps
green star polyps
mushrooms diff colors
ricordea
button polyps
leather coral
frogspawn
The tank has been running for over 2 years now. I will get some B-Ionic to bring my alk up.