Good evening TR Crew,
I replaced a small double bulb 36" coral life t-5 light with a Current duel PC 196watt and I have a few questions:
1. the Deul bulbs-are they worth it? One is 10k/6700 and one is 420/460 actinic when I replace the bulbs should I go with the double duel or should I stick with a 10k and actinic?

2. I have had many recommendations from my LFS on what is acceptable to keep under PC's can I get a short list of acceptable corals.

Right now I only have a few mushrooms with my fish it is a 46 gallon bowfront tank.

Thanks for all of your help!

1. I used 50/50 bulbs when I had a PC fixture
2. You could also keep zoanthids, xenia, softies like colt coral, non-photosynthetic corals like sun corals (but you must feed these) and digitata if it was up higher in the tank.

Thanks for the advice. I just got a Green Star Polyp today, very exciting!
One more question. The Current Duel satellite has a white moon light-It appears that the blue is the norm? Does anyone know if it is easy to change out the led bulb?

Rip out that blue plastic covering under the coke lids or the jack daniel's bottles & stick that in front of your white LED, bingo, you have blue!
Personally i like white, gives a nice clean ripple effect @ night

Good evening TR Crew,
I replaced a small double bulb 36" coral life t-5 light with a Current duel PC 196watt and I have a few questions:
1. the Deul bulbs-are they worth it? One is 10k/6700 and one is 420/460 actinic when I replace the bulbs should I go with the double duel or should I stick with a 10k and actinic?

2. I have had many recommendations from my LFS on what is acceptable to keep under PC's can I get a short list of acceptable corals.

Right now I only have a few mushrooms with my fish it is a 46 gallon bowfront tank.

Thanks for all of your help!

Absolutbill -

Don't be fooled by what can and can't be kept under PC lighting. Everything in my 240 is growing very well ... and all under only 6 x 96 watt PC bulbs. Thats 576 total watts for a 240 gallon tank, or about 2.5 watts per gallon. This is well below the reccomended wpg rate, and yet I am able to keep a wide variety of soft and hard corals. You, on the other hand, have over 4 watts per gallon.

The trick is coral placement. The corals that need more light are up higher in the tank. That green coral up high in the second picture is a Hydnophora - a hard coral that is reccomended to be under metal halide lights. Mine has grown about 10 times its original size in around 4 months, and has lost none of its color. Despite that, I am smart enough to stay away from the more light demanding hard corals, such as the acropora types. As an experiment, a friend gave me a small piece of a green montipora. While the coral is growing nicely, it is no longer green and has turned tan. We both knew this would happen, but wanted to see what the growth rate would be like.

The other secret is feeding. I feed my corals once a week. I believe that what I lack in lighting, I make up for in feeding.

BTW - I am using the same bulbs you are using in this configuration: 4 x 96 watt dual daylight and 2 x 96 watt dual actinic. I love the color that this mixture of bulbs produces.

Good luck with your tank and welcome to Talkingreef.

Thanks for the advice. I just got a Green Star Polyp today, very exciting!
One more question. The Current Duel satellite has a white moon light-It appears that the blue is the norm? Does anyone know if it is easy to change out the led bulb?

I think there is a shift in moon light bulbs going to white. The ones on my 180 are white (came with the T5 fixture.) At first I was disapointed (the ones on my 240 are the traditional blue) but I have come to really like the white. Give it some time, you may find you prefer the white after a while.

Think of what the light of a full moon looks like on a clear night. It is pretty white.

Danamck, thanks for the advice.

You are right the white moon light is not that bad, I am only jealous of the glow of Green star polyps or different colors of mushrooms under the blue moon light.

Danamck, thanks for the advice.

You are right the white moon light is not that bad, I am only jealous of the glow of Green star polyps or different colors of mushrooms under the blue moon light.

Yep - I agree. If it drives you crazy, there are numerous companies that make add on blue LED lights. You could turn off your white ones and use those instead.

Think of what the light of a full moon looks like on a clear night. It is pretty white.

I agree - but I think the argument is that as you go deeper into the ocean, at some point it is only the blue spectrum that can reach that far down. Not being a diver, and therefore having never done a night dive, I don't know for sure. But I think I read that somewhere.

... and I beleive everything I read!

I agree - but I think the argument is that as you go deeper into the ocean, at some point it is only the blue spectrum that can reach that far down. Not being a diver, and therefore having never done a night dive, I don't know for sure. But I think I read that somewhere.

... and I beleive everything I read!
I believe that you are correct in this. I was thinking along the lines that the lunar lights are for our benefit, not necessarily the fishes. :)

My fixture has both hehe. I like having the whites and the blues on when all my lights go off. Then 2 hours later its just the blues. 2 hours before my actinics light up the whites kick on again and then both sets of LEDs go off when the actinics come on in the "morning". I am going to try and keep them on when the actinics are on and have them cut off when the halides kick on when I get moved out to SD. So many different ways of lighting, its crazy! I can only imagine what your fixture can do Carmie, since I can't afford one! :p

It is fun to see the sunrise and sunset. Plus you have clouds during a day. Every once in a while we have a hurricane and I don't run the lights for a couple of days. :) I haven't figured a way to program that, I just turn the lights off.