reeffreak, if it means anything the bulbs say T5HO :/
seabee, i picked it up from a guy who was getting out of the hobby on Sunday. My tank cracked on Friday so I saved the water, lr, and livestock in buckets. The tank at his house was going on 10 months. Mine was only 2 months old but I started it with 3 yr old lr and 50% of his water. When my tank broke I had lots of pods (even with a mandarin, he never liked to pick off the glass, only off rocks.), and lots of tiny new animals procreating and growing including asterinas, chitin, about 10 stomatella, about 50 spiral white things on my glass, 20 featherdusters and barnacles. Amazing that this stuff started appearing so quickly. Anyway, I used a bit of this 10 month old tank's water. Put in new dry reef sand (estes brand) as per everyone's advice and poured 60% his water with 30% my old water and topped it off with new water. Combined all the lr and corals and put it all in at once since all temps were the same in the buckets and tank and acclimated my mandarin and his clown. Sorry for the lengthy post but that's the history.
My neon zoas in the middle used to be open all the time, now only partially. My xenias are looking very limp and closed or small most of the time. Something isn't right or maybe everything needs a couple of days? The gonioporas on top are doing much better than before and the wellsophyllia is so so, not as green as when I first got it. The pipe organ upper center is opening up well and most of the zoas are looking ok. The mushrooms which are recovering from a wellso attack are only open some of the time. (I went away for 4 days and it fell on them and had a nice meal. The shrooms used to be open all the time and very big. Now they are half the size and usually closed.
I started this thread so I can provide optimal lighting so I can be sure I am not doing anything wrong. I am reading up on lighting strategies but could definitely use some help by all the experienced aquarists here. THANK YOU!
Art