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Coral placement and light cycle

Brando457

Brando457

I recently picked up the Coralife 72 Inch Aqualight Pro, 3x150W HQI MH Lamp + 4x96W PC + 4x1W Lunar LED

The gentleman I purchased it from said he only ran his PC to act as an initial light before the MH came on then would run only the MH and at night run the PC for another hour.

So basically 12 - 1 PC - 1 PC off
1 - 7 MH - 7 MH off
8-9 PC

The bulbs are 14K each, but should I run my PC in along with the MH or are the MH enough?

Also where can I place different kind of corals? My tank is a 135 (72 x 18 x 24)

I am thinking SPS upper 30% of the tank, LPS and Softies the lower portion? And what would I be able to keep on my sandbed as far as corals?

Also can I place acan and stuff on sandbed


http://www.marinedepot.com/Coralife_...MDMLM3-vi.html
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Running a light cycle is up to the person. Some people like to run it as night because they don't have to worry about temperature as much (night=cooler). Most people at least want to have the lights on while they are home to see the tank they are depositing their paychecks into. The PC bulbs are used mostly for supplemental lighting, so having them come on before and then stay on after your MH is a good way to create a dawn/dusk cycle. It also allows you to get a lower K rated MH bulb because you can get your blue colors from the PC bulbs.

As for positioning you are on the right track, but I believe you are coming from a nano with PC lights, so you need to do some light acclimation. You might want to start everything on the bottom and/or get some screens to defer the lighting to allow your corals to light acclimate. You can them move them up over time to figure out the best position. When I got my first MH I just assumed to put the SPS up top and bleached out/killed some corals. Also, I created some shady areas with the LR, frag racks and pump so I can put some lower level light corals in the MH tank.
 
Brando457

Brando457

Thanks for the reply! If the frag or coral was going from a mh tank to a mh tank would I still need to light acclimate?
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
You don't have to worry as much, but it is always a good idea to light acclimate. You don't know the PAR ratings of the tank they are coming from and what your tank is. The only time I really don't light acclimate is in our 20g which has T5s if the coral is coming from an MH system. But even then we generally will keep it on the sand for a few days before we move it up.
 
Nickjr000

Nickjr000

mnat said:
Most people at least want to have the lights on while they are home to see the tank they are depositing their paychecks into.
Click to expand...

Very very true hahaha

You have the right idea with the placement of the corals. I'd leave the pc's on all day with the mh. Have them on hour before and after too for the dawn dusk.
 
Brando457

Brando457

Ould I be right in saying that I can keep most lps on the sandbed with the mh? I'd like to pickup some favias and brains and place them them there.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
You should be ok, but having a shady area just in case is a good idea. With that depth of tank you should be ok with them on your sandbed. Before I bought any nice acans or chalices for our 20g I went out and bought cheap frags of those to see if they would work. They were both fine, so we preceded with the nicer stuff. This way if you make a mistake it is a cheap mistake not an expensive one.
 
Brando457

Brando457

Shady area in case of?

I have 2 acan frags in my biocube and they started as 2-3 small heads and now are 6-10 mostly large and cover their frag discs :).

For now the only corals going under the light are 2 acans, a hammer, torch, candy cane, and
small rock of zoos.

I'll prob end up selling or trading a large zoo rock and a blue mushroom rock. I also have a trumpet but it does not seem to be doing well.

Do alot of members or people local frag their brains/favias or mainly buy colonies?

If I could find frags at a decent price I'd prefer allowing them to grow over an already large colony.
 
Nickjr000

Nickjr000

Shady area in case the mh is too much light for the lps on the sand bed. But your mh are only 150's and your tank is 24 deep you should be fine
 
C

cmor1701d

Your tank is deeper than my 125, but with the same fixture and 10k MH my clam has grown quite nicely sitting on the sand bed.

I used a "standard" lighting schedule of 12 hours for the PC, 10 hours for MH (1 hour dawn/1 hour dusk).

I recently switched to LED's.

I'm selling my MH fixture now so I’m curious how old yours was when you bought it and how much you paid. You can pm me if you don’t want to say in public or just ignore me too <g>
 
R

reeferwanabe

I have the same fixture and you have to change those pc's every 6 month ma be 8 or algae starts to grow. I'm using 20k radium's. love it. then I switched out my pc's to a 50/50 bulb. much brighter and with the 20K's I didn't need full actinics. even got more shimmer with the 20K's
 
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