Keep losing acros :(

mcarroll · May 4, 2013

Also, whether the lighting is 2 x 150w or 250w or 2 x 250w halide it's way overkill by at least double for a tank that size (one of that depth particularly).

Reduce to at most one bulb, but also consider a downgrade in wattage as well if you really are running 250w over this little tank. That much light is going to cause more trouble than good even aside from heat issues.

-Matt

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bucksfan1976 · May 5, 2013

wow you have 2 x 250 watt metal halides over a 30 gallon tank? Thats alot of light, the old school thought on Metal Halides and t5 are 5 times the tank volume, so in essance you should have about 125-175 watts of total lighting. With the lighting you have this can cause HUGE tempature swing.

Try this and see if this helps the temp swings

1. If you are running 2 halides, only run 1 and see if that helps the swing of temp.

2. If it does maybe you best bet would be to go LED, it would help with your temp swing plus save you money on your electric bill

3. Agreeded with above, SPS needs changing flow, a small wavemaker or something that is not constant would help. I learded the hard way , had a acro directly infront of return and 3 days later RTN.

diamondreef · May 5, 2013

We have one metal halide and actually have the halide on our display. Reef Torch led on other bc we wanted to see difference in growth and color. He wants my led now so we will prob have to get another so hope it fixes problems. No heater in the tank or sump. Used to have a fan but got wet at some point and difficult to mount on new stand bc is a rimless tank. Thank you for all the replies... hooking up a chiller today until we get an led I guess... lost 1 acro completely... 2 are recovering in other tank hopefully they make it... lost a favorite though :/ blue ora hawkins

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mcarroll · May 5, 2013

Sounds like you are on track!

Adding a heater (or few, as noted) to minimize that night time drop will probably still be necessary.

You really would like to keep the day-night variation down to about 1Â°F.

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