Lighting and corals questions

[Civicdemon]

Ok so on my other post i was askinv about lighting. So anyways for now i pocked up a PCfixture 72 inches long with 4 96 watt bulbs and blue led moons. Being as most if u said that would not be enuf i also picked up 2 36inch strips of leds one for each side. The guy at the shop said if i had 2 strips on each side i would not even need the pc lights. Anyways that eventually the plan to just go with leds.
For now i have the 72 inche pc fixture and 2 strips of leds. So i started out with a couple frags. I have a torch coral frag. A frogspawn frag and a birdsnest frag.
Tje frogspawn and torch are in the midle of the tank both on seprated rock work by open water. The birdsnest is right at the top. Anyways its ben a couple days and they seem to be doing good. So i was just wondering whats signs of a stressed coral and a happu coral so i know whether to move them or not. You know higher more flow and so on

 

[hoopsdaddy]

"So i was just wondering whats signs of a stressed coral and a happu coral so i know whether to move them or not."

Stressed LPS coral will show little to no polyp extension. Normal coloration for that coral will begin to fade.
White tips on SPS(birdsnest) is growth(good), browning on the birdsnest with no polyp extention is bad.

 

[Smitty]

+1 hoops.

 

[Bifferwine]

What kind of LEDs did you get? Some are just for accent lighting and aren't capable of supporting corals. You should REALLY be researching before you buy equipment -- reef-capable LED lighting is very expensive for a tank that size (thousands of dollars), so I'm doubtful as to whether you got the right stuff (and again, you are continuing to take advice from the fish store that has continuously given you terrible advice). I hate to see people misled by their LFS, and you have continuously just listened to what this guy tells you and it has resulted in a ton of dead fish, wrong equipment and wasted money. So I hope you got good LEDs, but based on everything else this guy has sold you, I'm not holding my breath. I said in another thread to you, stop giving bad stores your business. It's your money, but you keep getting ripped off and you keep going back and just doing what he says.

That said, what LEDs are they?

 

[Civicdemon]

What kind of LEDs did you get? Some are just for accent lighting and aren't capable of supporting corals. You should REALLY be researching before you buy equipment -- reef-capable LED lighting is very expensive for a tank that size (thousands of dollars), so I'm doubtful as to whether you got the right stuff (and again, you are continuing to take advice from the fish store that has continuously given you terrible advice). I hate to see people misled by their LFS, and you have continuously just listened to what this guy tells you and it has resulted in a ton of dead fish, wrong equipment and wasted money. So I hope you got good LEDs, but based on everything else this guy has sold you, I'm not holding my breath. I said in another thread to you, stop giving bad stores your business. It's your money, but you keep getting ripped off and you keep going back and just doing what he says.

That said, what LEDs are they?

Well this is a difrent lfs. Its exclusively saltwater. Its further drive but i think its qorth it the leds are i believe 75I leds rated at 3w leds but only powered to 2.2 so that they last longer. Its actually what he uses at the store and all his coral looks awsome. They where 500$u for both strips and like i said i will be getting 2 more atleast. But for now its all i can get.
On the other had both my torch and frogapawn are fully extended and seem happy as far as the birdsnest go i juat got that one but it looks good so far.

 

[Civicdemon]

So i had my lights set up to where the Actianic and 10k daytime came on at 8am and then the whites would go off at 7pm and the actianic at 8 then themoon light leds would come on at 8 till 8 am, anyways since i have ben doing this i noticed more diatoms taking over so i did some more reaserch and some people only have there lights on for 7 hours for there corals with the blue actianic on one hour befor eand after, thats 9 hours of light but only 7 hours of day light,

Is that a good for the corals ???

So if this is good im actually planing on having my blue actianic come on at 8am and then the daylights would shoot on at 9am along with the blues, Then i would have the Daytime ones go off at 5pm and the blues stay on till 6pm, then the moon light leds would kick on and shut off at 8am would this be a good light cycle ???? With the actianic on for 10 hours and the daytime on for 8 ??

 

[Bifferwine]

Average is 8 to 12 hours on total. Some people turn their actinics on an hour earlier and keep them on an hour later than the daylights to simulate a dusk and dawn effect.

If you are having diatoms, a more likely cause of that is using tap water -- since diatoms feed on silicates and tap water contains silicates. Do you use tap water? The lighting will aggravate it and make it worse, but using tap water is usually the ultimate cause of diatoms.

 

[Civicdemon]

Average is 8 to 12 hours on total. Some people turn their actinics on an hour earlier and keep them on an hour later than the daylights to simulate a dusk and dawn effect.

If you are having diatoms, a more likely cause of that is using tap water -- since diatoms feed on silicates and tap water contains silicates. Do you use tap water? The lighting will aggravate it and make it worse, but using tap water is usually the ultimate cause of diatoms.

when i had first set my tank up i did use tap water initially but since about a month after i only use RO/DI water and water from my local fish store. It could be that theres still a bit of tap water in there but i have since done so many water changes that i dought it. Well im about to do a water change right now and clean my filters also.

So does my new lighting schedual sound ok with the 8 hours of daylight with one hour before and after with the actianic blues ???ofcourse the blues will ebnd up being on for 10 hours actually.

 

[Bifferwine]

Yeah, it can take a while to get all the bad stuff out of the tank if you start with tap water. Using good water after you set up the tank is the right thing to do, and it will get there eventually.

Your plan for lighting sounds good. You can even reduce it so the actinics are on for 8 hours and the daylights are on for 6 if you keep seeing algae.

 

[Civicdemon]

Yeah, it can take a while to get all the bad stuff out of the tank if you start with tap water. Using good water after you set up the tank is the right thing to do, and it will get there eventually.

Your plan for lighting sounds good. You can even reduce it so the actinics are on for 8 hours and the daylights are on for 6 if you keep seeing algae.

Ok cool ill try the new schedual first then if i still get diatoms then i reduce it o e more hour at a time so i can keep it slow.

 

[spikegillen]

I'm curiouse if anyone has ever had an algae issue using moon lights? I currently use 2 48" strips of T5's with 2 actinic blues and 2 white lights. I have the blues on for about 8 hours total and the whites on for about 6 total with a total of 8 hours of light. one of my fixtures has blue LED moon lights. I was told to make sure they do not stay on all of the time so right now I unplug the fixture when its time for all of the lights to go out. I haven't left them on over night because I don't want to have an issue with algae. Just curiouse what everyone elses expirence has been.

 

[Bifferwine]

Moon lights will not contribute to algae problems. You shouldn't have to unplug the lights -- moonlights are meant to be run at night (that's why they are called "moonlights" after all :lol:).

 

[Smitty]

+1 Biff.