Lighting..

[wwest]

This is a question i have been avoiding for awhile now. my 40 gallon tank mainly has xenias, anthelias, mushrooms, polyps, a chunk of soft coral, and a BTA with a clown. i want more of a coral tank than a fish tank. The lights i have now are a 10w coralife full spectrum light ( i think ) and a marine glo antitic light 15w.

For coral is 50/50 good?

Now in a tank i dedicated to fragging i have a full spectrum wal-mart light in it and my xenias and mushrooms are growing faster than my bigger tank. the specs are the same in both tanks.

P.H. - 8.2
K.H. - 110
ANM - 0
NITRA - 0
NITRI - 0
SALIN - 1.022
CAL - 450
TEMP IS 80

It seems that the info i read off the net is diferent from one to another.
thanks for the help in advance.. :-)

[fat walrus]

i seems like you don't have enough wattage to keep more variety than already have now. you might consider putting the money for new bulbs toward a better lighting system instead.

[gwen_o_lyn]

how long have u had the anemone for?

[wwest]

about 3 months..

[Marauder-m]

I'm in the process of putting in 4 T5 fluoro tubes at 24W each. I'm told this will be enough light for most softies and LPS, but perhaps not SPS.

My tank is a 33 Gal bow-front corner unit.

[wwest]

i beleave my tank is a 40 bow. messurements come to 39.9 is it just all around full spectrum flouresent light best for softies, lps and sps? or so you want a 50/50 type of light?

[Marauder-m]

I was advised to have a combination of 10k and blue actinic tubes (2 of each). Cant really testify as to how effective it is, as I have yet to install it all. I suspect your tank is the same size as mine. Mine is 33 Gal because there is an internal sump and trickle filter installed. The 24 inch lights JUST fit inside mine with about 5 mm clearance from each wall of the tank.

[wwest]

this is what people here localy are telling me to buy "5500K VHO flourescent setup at 220 watts" but at the same time people localy are telling me not to buy that. thats my delima..

[fat walrus]

wwest, VHOs are dinasaurs. do you know the brand names of your choices and what type of lighting you have to choose from?

[wwest]

no i was planning on buying something offline. all the stuff around here are either coralife or generic wally world brand. i was looking at one in marine depot. its 24 inch 1x65w + 1 lunarlight, its a single satalite with 7100k blue/10,000k white (50/50) bulbs. the other challenge is finding a good light thats 24 inchs wide. lol

[wwest]

buying something online i ment.. long day lol

[fat walrus]

if that satelite is made by current, stay away from it.

[wwest]

yea lol current USA powercompact lol are corallife lights good if you get the right type?

[fat walrus]

i like coralife. if you are looking at PCs. they have one with 1x65 10k+1x65act + 2x.75moon.

[wwest]

Do you think a single liniear strip w/ 65w would be enuff? or do i want a dual? and what is this PC's you speak of?

[Marauder-m]

PC = Power Compact

[fat walrus]

PCs = power compacts, or compact florescents. one thing about reeftanks is that everyone try to get the most light they can afford so that they don't have to upgrade too many times.

[gwen_o_lyn]

Here is a link to an article about lighting

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/lighting/a/aa041100.htm

[wwest]

thank you..

[Reefbaby]

I wouldn't go with lighting lower than 10K, unless you want to grow some healthy algae. the corals will definitely do better with a higher spectrum....

[gwen_o_lyn]

if that satelite is made by current, stay away from it.

What's wrong with current USA? Both my fixtures are current usa and they work good. Well the first one was Custom Sea Life which are the same fixtures as Current.

I would be cautious of using aquatraders though. You get what u pay for.

[wwest]

actually i was wondering the same thing. current usa is priced really good at marine depot..

[gwen_o_lyn]

Wes,

Here are some links to lights that would work for you. Just decide what kind of lights you want- I am concerned about your anemone under anything less than MHs or T5's.

For PC lighting, here are some options:
http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CU01021
- has the moon lights and a fan

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=ES53102
-has a fan

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=ES53402
-moon lights and fan

http://www.hellolights.com/241x17mehaan.html
metal halides and pc's

http://www.hellolights.com/244latekli.html
T5's

The only advice I can give you is that most reefers start out with lower light levels and then eventually want to upgrade to the metal halides or T5's. T5's are new and becoming very popular. I'd say- get the good lights now and u won't have to upgrade.

[wwest]

thanks for the info. i will probably just buy now instead of later..

[fat walrus]

when custom sealife was made in america, it was some of the best lights available. all the later custom sealife that was made in china has failed on me. in fact some of those later custom sealife started fires and caused lawsuits. the company bankrupted themselves and restarted with a new corporation. my lfs stopped selling current because of high rate of failure. that also goes for many other lfs here that i know of. some stores still carry them because the wholesale cost for them are incredibly cheap and the store can make a far greater margin than coralife. did you know that coralife is owned by a fortune 500 company that requires everything to be engineerered and than tested for ONE YEAR before releasing it for sale. that is one main reason why they cost more and are slower to the market with new products. the name current usa is borrowed from current china that is not the same company, but does provide the ballasts. was told by inside source that current usa buys the cheapest ballast made by current china. my local fish store sell plenty of replacement ballast for current, but never for coralife. and yes aquatrader is garbage...they even have issues with the firemarshall of houston.

[wwest]

well i think i will go with coralife lol :-) gwen when you were asking about my anemone i forgot to ask. do anemones take a diferent type of light than soft and hard corals?

[gwen_o_lyn]

interesting... that is one story I've never heard.

How did u hear about this?

[gwen_o_lyn]

well i think i will go with coralife lol :-) gwen when you were asking about my anemone i forgot to ask. do anemones take a diferent type of light than soft and hard corals?

most anemones like the same lighting you would use for SPS and clams meaning MH's

and I guess T5's work too...

[wwest]

oh ok do you know of any type of lights that are good all around? like a happy medium?

[gwen_o_lyn]

oh ok do you know of any type of lights that are good all around? like a happy medium?

I think the happy medium is to get the MH's and put the soft corals on the bottom and then your SPS up high. LPS could prolly go just about anywhere. For your tank, I'd get a 150w metal halide and supplement with actinic T5's *preferably*, PC's or VHO's would work too.

You may not find a fixture that is 24" with both MH's and T5's..... so just go with PC's or VHO's

[fat walrus]

interesting... that is one story I've never heard.

How did u hear about this?
i have become a good friend of the owner of my favorite lfs. he is extremely upstanding and refuse to sell any product regardless of profit margin if he does not believe in it. he also knows an good amount of people in the dry goods industry and since i hang-out a lot ,i hear a lot. there has been many other products that i read about in forum groups, but bite my tongue because i don't want to be a know-it-all....but TR is my home now so sometimes i want to speak out. i have surfed RC for years and not posted a single reply.

[wwest]

untill i get a new light do you think i should out a full spectrum light in place of my actinic?

[gwen_o_lyn]

i have become a good friend of the owner of my favorite lfs. he is extremely upstanding and refuse to sell any product regardless of profit margin if he does not believe in it. he also knows an good amount of people in the dry goods industry and since i hang-out a lot ,i hear a lot. there has been many other products that i read about in forum groups, but bite my tongue because i don't want to be a know-it-all....but TR is my home now so sometimes i want to speak out. i have surfed RC for years and not posted a single reply.

interesting... after many hours spent reading reef boards, I've never heard anything like this... not saying it's not true, but I would have to do further research.

Now Aquatraders is a completely different story! I can read all day long about complaints on that company. But at the same time, you also read about people that like them.

[gwen_o_lyn]

untill i get a new light do you think i should out a full spectrum light in place of my actinic?

I don't understand your question.

[wwest]

sorry. right now i have a actitic light along with a coralife light. do you think i would be better off to swap out the actitic light with a generic full spectrum light. full spectrum light being one that you buy at wally world.

[gwen_o_lyn]

I am not sure... those full spectrum lights can prolly grow some serious algae though. Will this fixture allow you to swap bulbs like that?

Sorry, but I don't really understand FW lighting at all :( I'm sure it's easy, but never tried to figure out kelvins and temperature stuff.

[wwest]

yea i have two fixtures. and i can swap both bulbs out.

[fat walrus]

interesting... after many hours spent reading reef boards, I've never heard anything like this... not saying it's not true, but I would have to do further research.

Now Aquatraders is a completely different story! I can read all day long about complaints on that company. But at the same time, you also read about people that like them.
it is not me saying it, but rather me hearing insider talk and deciding whether to past it on or not. there are plenty of happy current users out there, and if they have good experiences with them, and the price is good for them, i wish them the best success. everyone needs to make their own judgement. i base mine on what i know, what i see, what i hear from manufactorers, what other hobbyist are saying, and finally what my trusted lfs tells me. if you doubt my sincerety in my comments, let me say that mike laskey-president of current usa taught me how to play craps, and i recently had sushi dinner with kevin richard-director of sales of ESU(coralife), Kent Marine, Oeanic, Allglass, and TFH PUBLISHING. coralife is BIG. their logo was recently add to the roster of sponsors of the Oakland A's.

[gwen_o_lyn]

I'm surprised this insider talk hasn't leaked out yet. There must be more info about this *somewhere* on the web.

[gwen_o_lyn]

yea i have two fixtures. and i can swap both bulbs out.

sorry, I don't know what to tell you- if you can put PC lights in there, then I would do that... or do one with white 10K and one actinic. Will that work maybe? You just wanna make sure you have the right ballasts I suppose.

[wwest]

not sure i am going to do some investigating this weekend and see what i can find..

[gwen_o_lyn]

not sure i am going to do some investigating this weekend and see what i can find..

If you have a regular FW light fixture, then I don't think you can put "reef type" lighting in there since the ballast would be wrong. I get kinda shakey on the lighting stuff when it gets this deep. I'm sure someone else will chime in.

[fat walrus]

gwen, i'm not the only one who know this. a lot of other people on the west coast knows this. the internet is very useful, but most lfs owners and manufacturers are not going to spend time talking about dark secrets online. the web is for commerce and hobby group like ours. sometimes the answer is in front of us, why did custom sealife-a well recognised brand suddenly go out of business to re-surface immediately under a different banner? my intention is not to thrash talk about anything but to point out what i think to be a safer option. a leading cause of house fires is due to electrical wiring or appliances...that is why i'm so vocal about this. there is a recent thread about current ballast failure started by victoria(?).

[gwen_o_lyn]

not sure i am going to do some investigating this weekend and see what i can find..

Wes- sorry to mess up your thread. Please ask any questions you may have concerning the lights- we are still here to answer your questions!

Do you have a particular fixture in mind?

[V]

just going back some what, id like to add my 2 cent worth.

PC lighting is off the list for me, i have never own a set, but i have heard nothing but bad things, everything from the tube being curved in a dirrection that the usable light can not be dirrect where u want it to go, to they are alot more fragile than standard lighting, or T5 for that matter.

im interested to know why blubber finds T5 VHO to be a dinosaur?

i agree with RB that i would not go under 10k daylight.
but in doing a research with Marauder on the lighting system question it has been found to our eye actinc blue or purple works best with 10k daylight bulbs.

also whats disturbing in this same search we found that actinic spectrum although it benifits in the overall spectrum as added suppliment, really mean squat overall, and its been widely accepted that is for our viewing pleasure only. being old school myself, this is still harder to accept, but i still have my actinics running!

[wwest]

no its cool gwen, its interesting to read. i think i am going with a coralife aqualight. 2x65/2x1000k and 2 lunar 3/4w leds. it has gotton good reviews and it has three power cords :-)

[gwen_o_lyn]

Good deal- let us know how you like it.

[fat walrus]

veriann, i believe that wwest was referring to T12VHO, not T5..which i know to be available as standard or HO...but not VHO. i do have T5s also, but are still satisfied with my PCs which was a godsend when then first became available. both have been around, but it is the reflector technology that gives T5s the edge, some of the reflectors on cheaper T5 systems are as ineffective as anything else. in fifteen years, i have not broken a PC bulb even with my blubber hands. the current debate in my area right now over actinics is 420nm or 460nm.

[V]

yeah, must have miss read, thanks blubber.
im glad the PC is a vital piece of equipt in your setup, i cant speak from experience as i mentioned. just heard negative things about them in general in my travels when compared to T5..

in refering to that wavelength actinic, whats the common concensus of this debate

[fat walrus]

i'm not sure...still confused. but if i remember correctly, 420 is more for looks and 460 is more benefitial.