Acclimating your lights??

M

meera

Registered Member
Oct 30, 2009
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So, I'm upgrading from a double fluorescent strip to t5's (4 bulbs).
Because it's a rather drastic change in lighting, is there a suggest route to go in terms of "acclimating" the lights to your tank?
With the new upgrade, I wonder what kind of corals I can keep...
 
What is there to acclimate? It sounds like you might not have any corals right now. If that is the case, there is nothing to do. Just hang the light and turn it on. You didn’t mention tank size. However, with proper placement, all corals can be kept under T5s. Also, what bulbs do you have in the fixture? I have a preference for ATI’s….quality bulbs with high PAR values. If it were me, I’d go with two ATI Blue Plus and two ATI Aquablue Specials. Nice color and great PAR.
 
It's a 75-gallon, with a colony of green star polyps and blue mushrooms.
They're placed pretty high in the tank, which was why I was wondering if I should move the corals down a bit....
 
Four bulbs on a 75….no problem with softies. Any SPS, you will want to put in the upper half of the tank. If you throw on two more bulbs, good to go, right to the bottom of the tank with anything. Actually if you add an additional two bulbs, you can set up a light cycle where these come on first, and go off last, to mimic early morning and late afternoon, respectively. That is what I currently do. Two bulbs come on for two hours before the other four turn on. The four bulbs stay on for eight hours and then go off, leaving the two bulbs to stay on for another two hours. FYI, I successfully have SPS, LPS and softies in my tank under a six bulb fixture (being overdriven with IceCap ballasts).

In regard to your mushrooms and GSP, if you can move them down, do so. Otherwise they are pretty resilient and should acclimate quickly.
 
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