hi shane.
I too am in the same boat you are. I have a 120 with 2 400w mh 65k mh, and 4
110w vho actinics,
I bought the lighting with the intention of sps. but I already had too many
softies and lps corals.
I acclimated them over a duration of 6 months. and still I have lost alot of
corals that were magnificent. I have even thought about getting out of the
hobby.
What I am going to do is when my mh bulbs need replaced (feb) Im going to
switch to 250 or even 175 w mh.
one thing you can do is get some of that lighting eggcrate stuff and cut it
to fit your tank, that diffuses alot of light. helped me out.
I gotta say that my corals are washed out as well. after many and numerous
ppl told me to go with the pfo 400w setup.
I regret listening to those guys. my tank looked better under 6 vho bulbs
than the mh.
so in conclusion I agree with the others that we can get away with far less
light than what the "experts" recommend.
dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Shane Clays" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 2:10 PM
Subject: Lighting regimen....
> All,
> I wanted to throw this new (new to me) thing I am doing on my tank and see
> if anyone has any comments. My tank, as some of you may remember, is very
> highly lighted. I am running 10.5 watts per gallon. I run 4 - 96 watt VHOs
> (2 - 50/50 and 2 actinic) and 2 - 175 watt MH's. With that much light, it
is
> hard to have success with many corals. Even many of my "light loving"
corals
> seem not to expand as much as they did in the tanks that I got them from,
> and some corals just do not do well.
>
> So, I finally decided to address this situation, and try a little
experiment
> to see if it made any difference with the color and expansion of my
corals.
> Is what I did was changed the duration of my lighting so that both of my
MHs
> are on only for a 4 hour period of time during the day (instead of 8).
Here
> is how it works.
>
> VHOs click on at 10 am.
> The first MH clicks on at 11am.
> The second MH clicks on at 2pm.
>
> The first MH clicks off at 6pm.
> The second MH clicks of at 9pm.
> The VHOs click off at 10pm.
>
> I just started doing this Friday so I dont have any long term results to
> report, but I will tell you this. After less than a week, the corals have
> really started to open up. All of my acros (except 1 that has been
> struggling) really fluff up, my goniopora is much happier, my LPS corals
> expand very nicely (well, as good as they can with the amount of current I
> have hitting them). The colors on some of my corals have just sort of
begun
> to change. They are darkening up a bit. By that, I mean the colors of the
> corals are becoming darker and more dominant. The purples that used to be
a
> bit light and washed out are darkening and becoming a nice purple and so
on
> for the rest of the colors on my corals.
>
> This seems to have made a difference in the positive direction, at least
in
> the short term. We will see how I feel about it in 3 months. Another bonus
> is that there is less of a heat factor on my tank, so my chiller runs
less.
> It is also kind of cool to have the "sun up sun down" effect on the tank.
>
> Any ways, just thought I would throw that out there. Any thoughts any
one???
>
> Shane C.
> ________________________________________
>
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