Echinophyllia Coral and stock lighting on biocube
 

I have two echinophyllia corals in my tank and i am having trouble wit hthe placement of these guys. and recommendations would be helpful. they are pretty but are starting to lose color. The water is fine I think its the lighting and flow. I have them on the bottom and off to the side as of tonight. Any suggestions guys

Stock lighting? Then it's probably the lighting.

By "it's losing color" do you mean that it is turning brown? It'll be tough to keep them colored up with stock power compact lighting, but hopefully someone with more chalice experience will chime in. I had a hard time keeping anything but softies colorful when I had my old 24g nano cube with stock power compact lighting.

i took it off the plug last night its about the size of a quarter. it was turned brown the next day on half the coral. should i put it high in the tank its at the bottom of the tank where there is medium flow and no shadows.

I would move it to the very top, the closest to the light as possible. The stock T5's in the biocube were never meant to grow SPS corals.

Yours had T5s! Nice! Mine have only had power compact lights with that generic crappy reflector.

Yes that was one of the upgrades corallife did. My biocube came with power compact T5's. Unless of course I'm confusing power compacts with T5's? The replacement bulbs for the corallife biocube state compact T5's. What exactly is the difference?

Ok so after doing some research, the biocube comes with power compacts. I had always thought they were T5's.

The difference is basically a power compact is a folder over T5. 2 tubes to a single connector, Vs a single bulb. It also seems it requires twice as many PC's to equal the output of a T5.

T5s are not power compacts, though they are both flourescent bulbs, and may actually be T5 diameter.

T5 = diameter of flourescent tube. Power compacts generally have at least 2 bends in them to make them more compact than their full length. I.e. PC bulbs look like a T5 bulb that has been bent halfway through and brought back to the socket plug instead of being long and end-to-end. I suppose they both may be T5, though power compact are just a different design type.

This was pretty neat showing the difference in the different TX sizes

If only there was a barely used LED lighting upgrade that would support your corals and anythign else you wish to add to the tank:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2550249

thanks guys i will move this coral to the top of hte tank. do you guys have any suggestions on a nano light that would be good as a possible replacement. I was looking at the AI prime led, and the AI nano module

Also acans should be okay in this tank with stock lighting right?

They will survive but you will lose the color in acans quickly.

Do you want to go open top for the tank? If so I recommend Kessil. If you want to stay closed top the light I am selling above is what many of us run.

trying to stay closed top because of cats in the house that behave badly. I was thinking of doing modifications to it to get hte lights to work right. For some reason I couldn't open the link on the message. Would either of those lights be a good option?

Oh you can't see classified ads when new. The link was to my for sale ad selling a rapid led Aurora pick retro fit kit. Basically a light that fits where the stock housings are that gives you full spectrum.

Other lights will work of course but most require either serious fitting of the hood it going topless

well for some reason I can't post pictures or anything but the corals are hanging in there. I need to upgrade the lighting in my tanks I am looking at the AI prime but the tank hood mods are a pain so i was looking at doing the led retro fits from rapid leds or steves but not sure which one to go with. i am trying to preserve the hood if possible. any suggestions

My suggestion is to buy my Rapid LED setup. LOL.

Seriously though if you have decided to go that route might as well save a few bucks and get a basically brand new used unit...