300 watts too much for softies?

[Larah]

I have 100 watts of PC lighting right now =, which is pretty weak..
I have 2 96 watt fixtures on order, so I'll have a total of 302 watts... Is that too much for my softies?
I am NOT interested in keeping SPS... Just Leathers, Zoanthids, Shrooms and some LPS....

Oh also, IMHO, Koralia 3 is too much flow for a 50 gallon softie tank... As is turning the tank over 38 times an hour.....
Everything was being whipped about...

[Larah]

CORRECTION: That's 110 watts of PC lighting currrently...
Geesh can't type!

[sjm817]

Softies, leathers in particular have an undeserved reputation for not liking a lot of light and flow. Leathers like lots of light, lots of flow. Zoas are tougher. Some like strong light, some do not. Shrooms, low light, LPS like a fair amount of light and flow.

[Larah]

So 300 watts is ok?
Not too much not too little.. That's what I'm striving for..
Just trying to get accross to the SPS lovers out there that I don't
need to get crazy with metal Halide.. I don't plan to have anything that REQUIRES really high light...

[Larah]

The finger leather I got is up at the top of the tank getting the most light and flow and seems to be doing really well!

[sjm817]

Try it and see. Move stuff around till its happy.

Here is a happy yellow fiji
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a370/Cheerleader555240/DSC_2754.jpg

And a hoppy finger
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a370/Cheerleader555240/DSC_2752.jpg

[Larah]

NICE!

We'll have to see what happens when I get the 2 new, 96 watt lights this week. Hope the corals just love it and grow like crazy, LOL!

Think it'll help with coloration and coralline growth as well?
I know my water params are optimal, so I'm figuring it's got to be my poor lighting that's keeping things from growing..
Don't get me wrong they look good but they aren't getting much growth.....and I coralline growth is not very fast either......

[ACBlinky]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12171008#post12171008 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sjm817
Softies, leathers in particular have an undeserved reputation for not liking a lot of light and flow. Leathers like lots of light, lots of flow. Zoas are tougher. Some like strong light, some do not. Shrooms, low light, LPS like a fair amount of light and flow. +1

Many softies can tolerate lower lighting and flow, but few prefer it. Leathers thrive in high light IME -- I have 2x400W MH over my 90g and the leathers, zoas and shrooms love life in the sun. I've switched from 10K to 20K because everything tended to brown out under 10K; none of my corals ever seemed to object to the intensity, they just adapted by changing colour.

Mushrooms do prefer lower lighting IME -- many will do fine in bright light, but will completely brown out. They're perfect corals for all those darker nooks and crannies that even very bright tanks tend to have. I keep leathers in the high light, high flow areas, mushrooms in the lower, darker areas, and zoas everywhere (they genuinely don't seem to care -- intense flow and light, lower light, they thrive no matter what).

[SuperNerd]

plus doesn't the lighting type kind of depend on the depth of the tank?

[Larah]

Thanks for the info and EXPERIENCE! It truly is the BEST teacher!
So are there 20K PCS ?
And I'm thinking that my new 300 watts is still not enough... Sigh....
I don't think I can cram any more bulbs into the hood... It's only 50 gallons, LOL!

[Larah]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12171301#post12171301 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SuperNerd
plus doesn't the lighting type kind of depend on the depth of the tank?

Well that's true too! :)
My tank is 18 inches deep and the leather and Xenia are at the top of the tank at about 5- 6 inches from the bulbs...
Hammer is at about 8 inches....
Long tenticle plate is on the bottom....
Shrooms are on a rock 3 inches from the bottom...
Zoanthids are sort of everywhere...
Clove polyps are on real close to the bottom too.......

[ACBlinky]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12171306#post12171306 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Larah
And I'm thinking that my new 300 watts is still not enough... Sigh....
Careful, this is the kind of thinking that made me upgrade from 2x96W PC to 5x96W PC (two fixtures jammed over my 65g) to 2x400W MH & 2x54W HO T5 within the space of a single year. Many of us end up switching over to T5 or MH fixtures after using PCs for a while -- not that there's anything wrong with PCs, we just get bitten by the light bug and can't help ourselves.

To answer your question, I imagine you can get PCs in 20K, but I'd stick with a slightly lower K rating. 20K is very blue, and has significantly lower PAR (photosynthetically available radiation - read: light available for corals to actually use for growth) than 10K, which has the highest PAR rating, or 12-14K (next best).

300W of PC isn't a tremendous amount of light, so I'd stay in the 12-14K range at most -- you'll have decent coral colour, good growth, and they won't appear yellow to the eye like some 10K bulbs can.

[Larah]

Thank you so much for the info!
I have been bitten by that bug too.......

I don't want to do MH on this tank though.. It's just too small...
But now on the next tank..........

[Aquarist007]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12171425#post12171425 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Larah
Thank you so much for the info!
I have been bitten by that bug too.......

I don't want to do MH on this tank though.. It's just too small...
But now on the next tank..........

I agree with you 150watt metal halide maxes out at 18 inches---you would have problems with low light level loving lps's
(hows that for alliteration):lol:

[Larah]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12171496#post12171496 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by capn_hylinur
I agree with you 150watt metal halide maxes out at 18 inches---you would have problems with low light level loving lps's
(hows that for alliteration):lol:

You're the BEST! ;)

[tmz]

The 300 sounds good to me. I keep soft corals under pc and mh. They tend to like it bright and have better color under mh and vho than pc.
When you upgrade your light be sure to phase it in so your corals aren't shocked into photoinhibition . They need acouple of weeks to adjust to new conditions. You can: keep the new light 6 inches or so off the water and gradually lower it over 2 weeks.,shorten the photo period by a couple of hours and gradually bring it back, or place several sheets of screening material to block the light and remove one every few days.

[zippopunk1]

i have a 400 watt metal halide on my 65 and now its on my 100gal but all my softies did really well

[Larah]

Well unfortunatley I don't have the money for MH.. and the tank location isn't conductive to MH.... So I'll just be upgrading to more watts of PC lighting on THIS tank.. Now my next tank.... LOL! :D
Just wanted to make sure that what I was upgrading to wouldn;t be too much.. Didn't think so, but ya never know! Which is why I ask you all since you DO know!
Thanks TMZ, I will be putting the new lights on a timer and having them come on gradually for more and more time per day...
I don't have the ability to raise and lower them as I have a built in shell for a top/canopy on my tank..

[tmz]

Good luck I'm sure you'll like it alot. You can play with actinic vs 10k lighting to suit your taste, I like to run about 2/3s actinic to 10k in my pc tank. I get better color.