New here. Question about coral and lighting.

AirAngel · Nov 25, 2012

Hi,
I am new here so I dont know much. I bought an established tank from CL and the guy is a member here.
Hope to get some of yall's know how. So anywho this is what I have.

50 gallon bowfront corner tank. It is about 36" across and 24" deep (NO skimmer)
(older) Coralife fixture 65w 10000K white 65w actinic blue (nightime led's are dead).

I have some very small frags or polyps (not sure) of ZOA and Palys. I have a big frag w multiple types of Zoa.

How far should I keep them from the light??
What type of shcedule should i try to keep to??

I added some blue moonlight led's and found the coral glows. Awesome!

Thanks much!
Mike

thejoshdavis · Nov 25, 2012

Some people say 6 hours is a good run time. Some say the more the better for the photo period. I'm in the process of getting timers setup. With my freshwater setup I have lights on at 6am until 8 am. They come back on around 330pm to 8PM. There is little to no natural sunlight in the room and the schedule is perfect for us for viewing.

Does your fixture have 2 circuits? You could power on your actincs for a "dusk and dawn" then your white for your daytime.....I could be totally false as I'm still learning too.

I have my zoas in the middle of the tank mid level. They seem to be doing just fine. I have my lights on most the day with a small siesta in the middle of the day. Everything seems to be doing just fine and growing pretty well. My leather has taken off. Xenias are growing like they usually do. The small zoa frags are doing great too.

Tagging along for some response :nerd:

Dowtish · Nov 25, 2012

Welcome to R2R and the MTRC forum!

If you can,have the blue light come on first and then 2 hours after turn on the white. let the white run for 7-8 hours, then turn it off, and let the blues stay on for an hour or so. Kind of a dusk dawn effect. I leave for work at 6:30am, so I have mine on timers, and they come on around 10am and dont fully go off till 10pm.

AirAngel · Nov 25, 2012

Dowtish said:
If you can,have the blue light come on first and then 2 hours after turn on the white. let the white run for 7-8 hours, then turn it off, and let the blues stay on for an hour or so. Kind of a dusk dawn effect. I leave for work at 6:30am, so I have mine on timers, and they come on around 10am and dont fully go off till 10pm.

Thank you!
I can do that with my lights. My tank is in a patio room with a good bit of nat. light.
How does this affect my setup? Does having room lights on during the "off" period affect the veg and flower stages of corals (if they operate that way)?
I have a few more questions to come.

I liked the first response about splitting the times up.
Will this work for me?
Hope to get more definitive on depth of placement plz

Oh BTW The fish bug bit me this Spring. I dug a 3000gal Koi pond / water garden in my backyard....w/pick and shovel.

quigimon · Nov 25, 2012

AirAngel said:
Thank you!
I can do that with my lights. My tank is in a patio room with a good bit of nat. light.
How does this affect my setup? Does having room lights on during the "off" period affect the veg and flower stages of corals (if they operate that way)?
I have a few more questions to come.

I liked the first response about splitting the times up.
Will this work for me?
Hope to get more definitive on depth of placement plz

Oh BTW The fish bug bit me this Spring. I dug a 3000gal Koi pond / water garden in my backyard....w/pick and shovel.

I feel it's a "once you go salt you don't go back" at least that's how it feels with me but I'm a fan of lots of color so I may be biased, an I think the fish look better lol.

AirAngel · Nov 25, 2012

quigimon said:
I feel it's a "once you go salt you don't go back" at least that's how it feels with me but I'm a fan of lots of color so I may be biased, an I think the fish look better lol.

I do like the colors. The corals I have and others look so awesome! I have a fresh tank and a bunch of Koiin the pond to look at fish.

revsgirl · Nov 26, 2012

Hi there! Welcome to R2R!! Hope you find all the help you need right here!

fireman23 · Nov 26, 2012

Just make sure tank isn't getting direct sunlight.

orthokardia · Nov 27, 2012

welcome.... I have found most zoas are ok with just about aany lighting. at least the ones that i found under the rock (they fell a few months ago) looked ok

-bart

AirAngel · Nov 30, 2012

orthokardia said:
welcome.... I have found most zoas are ok with just about aany lighting. at least the ones that i found under the rock (they fell a few months ago) looked ok

-bart

Thank you. I wish I had read this a few hours ago. I restacked my lr and had it the way I wanted (it really looked good). Dropped a real small frag btween rocks.
Now my rocks are in chaos, oh I got the frag and in the process lost my polyp of Nuclear Green. :-(