MH acclimation

yellow submarine · 12-09-2006, 12:13 PM

With my hand over my heart, I swear I spent 15-20minutes trying to find old posts about MH lighting, how to acclimate, how many hours to ultimately leave on during the day... I couldnt find anything.

So.... I have two 250w 14K lights over my 75gal as of last week. Before that had PCs running 8hrs a day. With the new MH lights I've started out at 4hrs and plan on upping that to "what" I have NO idea.

Ultimately, how many hours a day for two 250w 14k lights???

Though I dont have such corals, I plan to have in a couple of months, couple of clams, maybe a brain (yeah, I have no brain right now, let the jokes fly) and other SPS and LPS corals.

motorslave · 12-09-2006, 12:18 PM

i think the height of the lights will be more of an issue in acclimation along with the time. One option, and more disruptive, is to lower all the coral in the tank, PITA! I think the best option would be to raise the lights and lower them over a week or two. Even if that entails raising the canopy. This would apply to new lights over existing coral. For adding new coral, try and find the lighting they were kept under at the LFS or online vendor so you have some idea to start from but generally, start them off low or at least somewhat low in the tank and raise, gradually, as needed over a week or so. Im sure others will chime in with more detailed info.HTH

Robert

motorslave · 12-09-2006, 12:29 PM

Heres how I will acclimate or adjust lighting when I get resettled in my new house and the 150 goes back up. Doug gave me this, its the mechanism out of one of those chairs that helps you get up. Has a seperate control so the height of the lights can be adjusted. Plus I just like gadgets! This will be an inwall set up so no canopy, the lights will be attached to a tube frame on a pully system.

combiemaster · 12-09-2006, 12:40 PM

ive read you can just leave them at the same height just put window springs on top and every week remove one layer off till they are all removed as for me i really did not have many corals just a button polyp and a colt coral i just used it about 4 hours a day for a week then 6 hours a week second week and then 8 hours the next week after that i have them now set at 9hrs a day every day. my bulbs are 250w 20k XM bulbs and i upgraded from PC's

motorslave · 12-09-2006, 12:45 PM

The photoperiod issue is all over the map. Some people have a long period for the MH some only a few hours. The effectiveness of the lights canb be effected by many factors such as water quality and other light supplimentation.