Lighting Upgrade Acclimation

Stixbaraca · Oct 20, 2006

I am going from 192 watts of PC to a total of 350 watts of 10,000K halides, and 96 watts of Actinic PC lighting.

What is the best way to ease the tank into the new lighting without cokking my corals???

Azurel · Oct 21, 2006

I would put some multi layers of screen over the tank and slowly increase the photo period while taking a layer of screen off like every other ever 2 days...How high off the tank is the lights gonna be?

Stixbaraca · Oct 21, 2006

by screen do you mean like for a screen door or window? I will have to remeasure to make sure, but I think like 7" off the water.

gflat65 · Oct 21, 2006

I'd go with window screen in several layers. When i went from 175W to 250W DE's, I had to do it very slowly and still burned some acros. I started with 5 hour photoperiods and slowly increased over about three weeks, with shading. I don't know of any 175W'ers that will blast and bleach like the 250W DE AB 10K's, so that is an extreme change, though. Start slow and watch your corals with slow changes. If they start to show bad signs, slow down the acclimation. I tend to go very slowly when doing something like that, just to be safe (but I do alot of redundant things in the name of caution...).

AngieN. · Oct 21, 2006

I used about screen material when I upgraded from 96w PC to 250w DE. Light is about 9" from water surface. I used about 5 layers and took a layer off about every 3rd day. Everything handled it well. I would just do it slowly as suggested by gflat.

gflat65 · Oct 21, 2006

Something to think about, too is that distance off of water doesn't really mean a whole lot. Air is not a very restrictive medium for light (esp. when compared to water). The two main things you change by changing the position of the lights (within reason-raising them 5 feet over the tank is going to spread much of the light before it hits the tank, so it wil be much dimmer, etc.) is the amount of heat added to the tank from the lights and the spread of the light. Water is a much larger variable in light reduction, so the distance from the surface of the water to the coral is much more telling than the distance from the lights to the water. Hope that helps in some way...

sr71 · Oct 21, 2006

Good pointers, I am considering change my lights from pc to mh soon. I currently have 65x4 260w pc now but don't run all 4 the whole time. I only run 4 hrs with all four bulbs. Now if I change to one 250w MH that is going to be on the whole photo period, is that going to make any difference? The wattage is about the same or less when I swap. TIA

Seng

Stixbaraca · Oct 21, 2006

thanks guys! will pick up some screen

surfn · Oct 21, 2006

stix, do you have alot of sps or something? what brand of 10k did you get?

what size tank? just curious.

definitely the screen method.

Stixbaraca · Oct 22, 2006

no sps (but would love a few now with the MH) They are 10,000K Ushio on electronic ARO ballasts. The tank is an Oceanic 58...which is 36.5" x 18.5".

jessiesgrrl · Oct 22, 2006

Yay Stix!!!
:cheers:
Laurie

Stixbaraca · Oct 22, 2006

It is exciting Laurie...the colors of some of these sps are amazing! I am psyched to pick a few awesome ones out! I saw a pic of this neon pink cap...I will be keeping an eye out for that one!

Stixbaraca · Oct 29, 2006

I have the hood and lights all up and running now since yesterday. I ran the lights (two 150W 10K, and one 96W actinic PC) for about 1.5 hours yesterday with no screen. Today I cut out the screening, and put 4 layers between the lights and the tank...and It looked like barely any light was getting through. I took 2 of the layers away leaving 2 layers. How should I know if I am doing more harm than good, or if it is too mch light too fast???

jessiesgrrl · Oct 29, 2006

Stixbaraca said:
It is exciting Laurie...the colors of some of these sps are amazing! I am psyched to pick a few awesome ones out! I saw a pic of this neon pink cap...I will be keeping an eye out for that one!

When I put mine under the MH, I put screens back if anything started to look dull. Dunno if there is a better way to do it, but none of mine got burned that way.

You are always welcome to a piece of anything I have! It is weird- some of them I really like, and some are just kind of like... blah. You know who has an awesome SPS collection is MeCold...

Laurie

Stixbaraca · Oct 29, 2006

jessiesgrrl said:
You are always welcome to a piece of anything I have!

Laurie

Where we going with this...J/K!!!

I an curious to try a couple "normal" easy to care for sps varieties out first before venturing onto to expensive ones!

jessiesgrrl · Oct 29, 2006

Any *polyp* or *branch*I have... LOL
Sorry..

Laurie

surfn · Oct 29, 2006

get a private forum you two lol

revhtree · Oct 29, 2006

Hey make sure you buy CHEAP sps frags and go with the easier ones until you know you can keep them alive.

Stixbaraca · Oct 29, 2006

I have read that the Montis are pretty indestructible...is that a general consensus? Are there any other you guys would suggest?

fishes2889 · Oct 29, 2006

I love my monti's. I have read that they are the hardiest of SPS and i have come to that same conclusion because i have never killed any myself.

Steve