DE MH UV Question

[outdrsyguy1]

I'm still chasing ghosts for my sps coloration problems and the next one I'm looking into is my lighting. I have a double ended metal halide coralife lighting kit (2 - 250W MH, 2 - 95W PC's). I bought it used and I think it was 4 to 6 years old. The UV protection glass was there but I was wondering if the glass ever loses it's UV protection or gets old?

I run 2 - 20k Geismann megachrome bulbs, one 50/50 actinic PC and one full actinic PC. Halides run for only 5 hours a day and have been that way about 2 months. PC's run about 12 hours.

Tank is a tall 110 (~28" tall) with lights mounted about 4" above the water in a hood.

I was thinking maybe I could find someone with an old LED set they would loan me to test. I'd go for t5/MH but I don't want to have to buy $300 in bulbs to test this hypothesis.

Thanks

Rusty

 

[schwaggs]

I don't think the UV protective qualities of glass wear out. My fixture (and glass) is around 8 years old and I don't have issues. I run 250 DE bulbs and have a 30" deep tank but have my sps in the top third of the tank. I run my lights longer than you. With 20k bulbs, and such a deep tank, I would run more than 5 hours. What's the longest period you have tried?

 

[patrick]

^ Agree with him. Run your lights longer. Any issues with heat? How old are the bulbs? And is the chemistry good? SO many problems get attributed to lighting that are really chemistry related. Not saying your issue is chemistry......just it wasn't mentioned and it is always the first thing I look at. But, your photoperiod is likely way to short. And, unless you are replacing the PC bulbs every 6 months or so.......they are prolly not doing anything for your corals. They are just allowing you to see them. Florescent bulbs really loose their ability to produce photosynthetically useable radiation at about 6 months and are mostly dead in that regard at about 10 months.

 

[skriz]

Yep, photoperiod is entirely too short. If you want to keep a shorter photoperiod, you'll need to switch to 10kk lamps. Even then, 5 hrs on that deep a tank with 250's is going to be tough.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Lol, this hobby's a trip sometimes... I used to run about 8 hours on the halides and had a couple folks tell me that was too long and to cut it down to 5. Halide bulbs are about 3 months old. PC bulbs are 5 months and 2 months.

Parameters have been pretty constant
400 to 415 caclium tested once or twice a week
7.6 dkh alk (was 7.0 to 7.7 for months, did dip down to 6.8 for a couple weeks till i started dosing) tested about 4 times a week
mag 1350 ish (always in the 1250 to 1350 range when I test, but don't test very often)
1.026 salinity for the last month, before that I had it at 1.023 for 4 months and changed it over the course of about 3 weeks, was hoping it would help get my alk a little higher but didn't help much.
nitrates 0, always
ammonia, nitrite always 0
PH 8.0 to 8.15 (typically 8.0 at night and 8.12 afternoons)
water changes 15% every 7 to 10 days and I vacuum the sand every time. Blow out rocks every 3 or 4 weeks.
Phosphate - no test I've found that's reliable. Red sea pro reads about .06 from my brand new filtered/resin DI/RO with 0 TDS with recently calibrated meter. Tank also measures .06 phosphate and have very little algae so I'm pretty sure it's phosphate clean. I run some chaeto in the sump on opposite schedule. It started out baseball size and it's about 2 baseballs after 3 months I think.

I'm really just totally stumped to be honest. Just trying to eliminate possibilities to narrow the process down.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Okay, so as examples I'll post a few pics. I have issues with the tip sps growth losing color and brightness, polyp extension on my older sps frags seems to be pretty bad also.

Cool Birds nest I got from Holly. Not as green anymore, a lot of white in the polyps and the skin color is much lighter. Growth seems pretty good as you can see.

Also some very cool ORA Hawkins from Holly that was deep in color but has faded to a very light purple, still seems to be growing decent.

Next, some pinkberry stylo (i think) that was pink skin with blue polyps. It's started turning white on the parts that face the lights. It's 2/3 down my tank so seems way to far to bleach.
Also beside it is some frogskin sps that I bleached by putting it like 5" under the lights when I got it, grew like crazy but lost all color and hasn't even considered coming back.

Next, a lps, I think it's a trachy that used to be deep beautiful read but faded to a light pink and very translucent in a lot of the tissue.

Lastly a deep green tort that has been one of my best growers, but all the base skin color went brown and only the polyps remained green.

Edit: last pic of tort (could only do 8 pics per post)

Edit:

Edit:

Edit: green tort now
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[outdrsyguy1]

anyone mind taking a look at the pics and giving me an opinion?

thanks!
Rusty

 

[ralph atl]

phosphates are on the high side for sure

&

2) five hours is not enough time.....I run 9 hours and with the ambient light from sun it gives me a 12 hour day.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Thanks Ralph. I've been running regular GFO for about a 6 weeks now (1 cup every 2 weeks, also rox carbon 1 cup every 2 weeks). Was just using chemi-pure elite (2 units a month) before that but got a BRS dual reactor to step up my game. I didn't think I had the bio-load you did so I backed it down to regular gfo and 2 weeks. I know you recommend once a week and high cap but I was hoping to not have to go to that expense unless necessary.

Are there any suggestions to lower phosphates other than large water changes and more expensive GFO? I probably feed half a pe mysis cube a day and a small sprinkling of spectrum pellets. I have a packet of Rod's food that I'm using a couple times a week. I do rinse the mysis also.

 

[patrick]

You can try some form of carbon dosing......biopellets, Red Sea NO3/PO4 X, vodka.....there are options. I carbon dose with vodka, but have switched to the Red Sea product as I had a free sample bottle and it is working pretty well so I will prolly stick with it. But vodka worked well for me too.