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View Full Version : Lighting....What do you think?


Meisen
08/10/2006, 09:02 AM
Well,
Been thinking for a while that I want a bit more light in my tank. Its a 120 gallon mixed reef 48"X24"X24". Right now, I am running an AB Oceanlight with 2 X 250 HQI DE Blueline 14K bulbs and 2 X 54 W T5 Super Actinics. The fixture is centered front to back over the tank however it just doesnt seem to punch down in front enough. I have a few clams down there as well as some LPS that I would like to see growing a little faster/coloring up a little better and something tells me that the light going through more than 3' of air and water (from the angle from the light plus its height above the water surface) isnt really enough to keep things colored up. So my idea is to move the Oceanlight back to the rear by 4 inches or so and put in 2 X 400 W pendants running 20K radiums. Since I dont have a chiller (we use AC to keep the tank cool), I would only run all the lights together for a short time during the middle of the day and then ramp them down from front to back.

Meisen
08/10/2006, 09:04 AM
Schedule would look something like this:
9:30 am actinics come on
10:30 am left 250 comes on
11:00 am right 250 comes on
11:30 pm left 400 comes on
12:30 pm right 400 comes on
2:30 pm left 400 goes off
3:30 pm right 400 goes off
8:30 pm left 250 goes off
9:30 pm right 250 goes off
10:30 pm actinics go off

I thought about flopping the day/night cycle to help with the heat but I hear its really stressful to the animals to do even if it happens over time.

What do you all think?