Need some guidance please.

I have a macro display tank and as of late it seems that I have been burning the red variety that I have in there with too much light. I just realized that I've been using the watts per gallon suggestions wrong because I have a 100g so I have been reasoning that I need around 400w to get to 4 watts per gallon. I just realized I'm probably burning them because although its a 100g, its only 48 inches long and probably about 22-24 in deep. I've been subjecting them to wattage that on a normal 100g would be spread out over 72 inches of aquarium. I've scaled back to 6 bulbs totaling 324watts 2 aquablues, 3 odyssea 12000k's and a GE 6500k daylight (id have 2 but one broke in shipping so when I get the replacement it will replace another 12000k). Should I further scale it back to 5 bulbs?

I'm not sure how to calculate how much light I need in the tank because of the funky dimensions. the 324watts still feels like overkill right now. Im thinking this because 4 of these bulbs would be fine for a 55g and most of the macros are in the front half of the tank so its almost like being in a deep 55. I'd probably try 4 of them in the front and leave one in the far back to light the caulerpa prolifera since its in the back.

3-4 watts per gallon would be fine for these macros in a normal tank but that equation just doesnt work for me in this situation :-/

 

These days the watts per gallon thing pretty much goes out the window. Are these T5 bulbs or what?

 

i would replace the oddysea bulbs when you can they are garbage

 

You might want to just move the red macros that are getting burned down in the tank, if they're placed middle to top.

 

Pics so we can drool please. Define burning the red algae. Most of the time if the algae is red it is not getting as much light as it needs. The more towards yellow the closer it is getting to maxing out on its needs.

 

Yes, these are t5's. I only have the odysseas on there cause I took the blue+ bulbs off since they werent doing anything for the macros and I was replacing them with GE daylights. I had them (all halymenia var.) in the middle, right in the most light. I tried moving them into the shade and I moved where the bulbs are placed so more of them are towards the back of the tank to shade the reds a little more. They started turning bright pink at the tips after I added a lot of new bulbs and started running 8 bulbs, this was for both the halymenia and gracillaria, John at reef cleaners told me it sounds like I was giving them too much light. The greens are doing fine since they dont have the same touchiness that the reds do. I'm trying to get this problem corrected since I just added some fauchea and red titan in the mix and dont want to kill them all.

I'll get some pics tomorrow for sure, theyre all sleeping now and I'd end up pissing off the corals in there right now. Plus it'd look crappy cause all of the mushrooms I have are all asleep and shriveled up right now

This is how it looked a week ago, it looks drastically different now as I've added two huge codium bushes in the center and moved all of those different halymenia down below the clove corals to the right



My favorite species of Halymenia. It is the one that I started seeing turn hot pink at the tips before I moved it.

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I will grab new pics soon as these don't do it justice and it looks nothing like that now. The grape caulerpa I got from John will look great once it stops being droopy but theyll probably still be grumpy tomorrow so please excuse them. Also this was with my old light setup with 4 Blue+, 2 Aquablue, 1FijiPurple, and a 6500K Daylight so now especially in pictures it will most likely not be quite as attractive in the lighting side of things.