Need help with lighting...

[john m_ lundberg]

On my 30g tank, (I'm completely new to saltwater, well I had a 20g with just sand, rock and nemo...nothing else...so this whole coral and reef stuff is new to me!)...I have a Coralife light. It has 2 switches on the back, 1 switch on a power cord for the moonlight...my tank now is really blue when the light is on. But I noticed on the light fixture there is a slot for another bulb...is that for a daylight bulb? Or is the blue one a daylight bulb?

I don't even know what kind of light this is or even where to begin looking because I don't know the model number. I bought 2 years ago and have lost the box. In the inside of the light there is a little box/transformer that says bulb type is pl96w...does that mean its 96 watts? And there is some tech specs about a pins 1.2.3.4...does that mean 4 pin bulbs? I am so lost and have no clue!!! :confused2:

Again...

1. I have a blue light in there now. Is that consider daylight, sunlight, just light?

2. Do I need a daylight or whatever the other would be? If so, what I am looking for?

3. What is the timing on these lights? I noticed when the lights are off, that little Kenya tree (my first live animal/plant) shrivels up and only full blooms when the light is on...so should a light be on at all times?

4. Do you all use timers for these lights?

Sorry so much...but I want to do this right...

 

[dakota9]

You need a 10K bulb, what you have is an Actinic in there now. Ideally, the actinic bulbs come on before the 10k bulb, and scheduled to turn off after the 10K bulb

Probably 96 what if the fixture is for a 30g Long tank. Pins on the bulbs are all four pin, either


straight ....


or


square : :

 

[john m_ lundberg]

It is a square pin...so how long should the blue be on before the other? And what about the moon light?

What should a typical day look life?

 

[cr500_af]

First, you have a Power Compact light fixture, so that's what you'll need to know to get bulbs (plus wattage and straight/square pin as Dakota said). You can do OK with soft corals and LPS in general; you'll want something more if you want to keep SPS at some point. Some of the "easier" SPS may do OK if they're very high in the tank, but even if they live and maybe grow a little, they won't get the color they should have.

Your photoperiod is not set in stone, but I think somewhere around 8 hrs/day is pretty common. Too long a photoperiod will stress livestock; they need a night just like you do.

I'd set the actinic bulbs (blue) to come on one hour before the 10K bulbs and go off one hour later than the 10Ks go off (in this example you'd run the actinics for 10 hours, 10Ks for 8).

The moonlights can be run 24/7 if you want... LEDs draw a minute amount of power and last a LONG time. If you want to put them on a timer, then just have them on during the same times that the actinics/10Ks are off.

You can time your lights to come on late in the day and go off late... many people do that so that the tank is "on" when they are home to enjoy it, i.e. the evenings. For example, my main lights run from 2:30-11:00pm. You'll find that a timer is almost mandatory... you want the photoperiod to be reasonably consistent. There are some neat timers available from Coralife (and probably others) that handle all of this staggering on their own.... but they aren't very reliable. As a matter of fact, mine just croaked last week. You'd be better off just buying a few mechanical timers from Walmart or Home Depot for about $5 each. They're easy to use and very reliable.

Or you could just go ahead and buy T5s or metal halides, and a controller to run everything... even if you are trying to convince yourself that you won't ever get that heavily into it. :lol2:

 

[john m_ lundberg]

Thanks for all the input!

It helped a ton!

 

[john m_ lundberg]

Went to Fishscales and once again got everything that I needed and a whole bunch more. They had the light bulb that I needed, so I think we are good now...thanks for all the input..