light cycle?

[BLEEZY]

what should my light cycle be?
tank is 125g softie lps tank.
three 250 watt mh's
two actinic's (cant remember wattage)

[Wiskey]

I run my 3 XM 10K's over my 125 for 11 hours per day. If I had atinics, I would run them for 12-13. I reccomend you let your corals tell you what the photoperiod should be though.

Whiskey

[BLEEZY]

what do you mean let my corals tell me? im not fully stocked yet so i cant really read my corals as of yet. what would you reccomend i do for now?

[Wiskey]

Well then let the corals you have tell you

Go for atinics 12 hours and MH 10 IMHO, but if the corals don't like it feel free to change.

Whiskey

[BLEEZY]

what should i look for specifically? i dont have jedi reefkeeper skills like you do, i do watch my corals very closely however and i am home all day so kinda help me out here,i do notice some changes in them on certain days but i am always unable to link the cause with something,the corals seem unhappy on random days that are no different than any other days. what do you look for in your corals?
i mean are we talking polyp extension, color, what?
i have some zoos, a finger leather, an unknown sps, torch, open brain, galaxia(i think) gorgonians and sun corals. thats all i can think of now but are there any specific things you would watch out for?

[Wiskey]

I don't have the Jedi Reefkeeping skills either, if I did I would have done far better with BB.

If one coral is starting to get lighter, then move it down, if every coral starts to loose color, and go to a white, then drop the photo period, or raise the nutreants, if you start getting algae, then your nutreants went to far and you need to lower the lighting only.

There is no coral I can think of that won't be fine with 10H MH, and 12H Atinic with your setup. Some might just need to be acclimated to it.

BTW which MH bulbs are you running?

Whiskey

[BLEEZY]

oops!!!
i have three 400watt 14,000k bulbs
does that change anything?
i dont know what the coral should look like when it is healthy so i cant be too sure about that for now, although i think i am getting a sense for it.
so if the corals lose color, raise nutrients? i want the longest photoperiod possible while keeping them happy, i am guessing that if the corals have no color this means they arent gtting their nutrition, either from dom(i think its called) or from their zoox.
so losing color or not growing is from malnutrition, i got that.
what would be a sign of nutrient overload?
yesterday i had al algae bloom, i cant figure out why but it grew at about three times its normal rate on the glass, instead of cleaning it every five days, i had to clean it about a day after the last time i did it, this has caused my fuzzy mushrooms and my open brain to remain fairly closed.
does this mean i need to raise the light and lower nutrients?
what is better to raise?
is it better to have high nutrients or high lighting with low nutrients?
am i just asking the difference between what sps like and softies like?
i run the mh's 6 hours actinics 10hours.
is there a way to measure dom? i doubt there is but how can you tell?
this is really making my brain hurt...

[Wiskey]

Eazy Turbo.

If your getting algae you need less nutreants, if you have a brand new tank then the algae doesn't count.

Loosing color can be bleaching from high temp, too much light, or too little food, or extended stress.

Very dark color (on SPS brown) is nutreants too high, light too low, or stress.

Water quality is far more important than light. I like looking at my tank with all my lights on --> SO I would set the lights to 10H MH, 12 hours Atinic then play with water quality, and if I must Bulb hight.

What reflectors are you running? How far off the surfice of the water is the center of your bulbs? HQI or SE? Who made your bulbs? and What kind of ballast are you running (HQI, Magnetic, Electronic)

It's still posible that I may have more light than you.

Whiskey

[Lobster]

I would leave your lights alone until you figure out your nutrient problem. Running them longer isnt going to get you better color. Actually it will probably just further stimulate the zoox population in your coral's tissue, and zoox is brown. I have one 150W 10K MH over my tank, but my water is so clean I had reduced my photoperiod to three hours in the hopes of improving color.

I consider my corals happy if they are growing and the tissue is healthy looking (ie, not contracted). Take pictures weekly if you cant discern growth so that you can compare. Polyp extension isnt always an indicator of health, some experts claim it means the coral is hungry. Even color isnt an indicator of health, though it is obviously something we strive for. You can have perfectly happy healthy brown coral that grows like weeds.


Test your parameters, know what to strive for, and get those stable. Once you get good at doing that, things just fall in line and you can work on figuring out the mysteries of color (and good luck with that!).

[Wiskey]

Good advice Lobster, I might also add that SPS coral use there pylops to breath, so excessive PE can be because the corals are sufficating as well.

Whiskey