How are your your lights?

I was just curious how high everyones T5's are above the water? I have 6 80w T5's and the lights are 9" off the top of the water and 22" from the bottom of the tank. All my water params test fine but some my corals dont seem happy. I was wondering if I should lower my lights?

 

I keep mine 28" above the sand.

What do you mean by unhappy. Please give a description of how they look and what types of corals you are talking about.

I am guessing that you have too much light and are light inhibiting your corals with T5 supplementing your LED. You can raise your lights to 30" above the sand or even higher with your light mix I surmise.

 

By saying unhappy, I mean the colors arent vibrant, especially on my monti cap. My monti cap has white areas that are spreading across it. Everyday they are a little larger. This happened a few years back and I had to cut my monti cap up to save it. The acros I have dont seem to be gaining or losing color. I am no longer am using the LED's I bought, I went back to all T5's. I was told by some people I need to lower my lights closer to the surface, but I am just not sure. I cant raise them anymore they are up as high as I can go. 5 of the bulbs I am using are ATI and 1 Geisemann.
2 coral Plus
1 Purple Plus
2 Blue Plus
1 Actinic Plus (Geisemann)
All the bulbs are new and I started out slowly with shorter light period and gradually increased the amount of time they are on. I changed back a few weeks ago and expected to see a change for the better not the worse.

 

you say your parameters are okay - Just want to confirm - are you checking Mg, Alk, and Ca as well?

 

Yes I have checked everything, being that I am at work I dont have all the results handy at this time.

 

Try cutting back to 4 bulbs. I had similar issues with my corals when I used 6 bulbs. Cut your light period back to 10 hours max and have the daylights on no longer than 8 hours. This might help. Also make sure your parameters are in the recommended ranges.

 

Ok thanks, given the bulbs I am using above which ones would you use? Thats an easy enough solution all I have to do is unplug a ballast.

 

I keep my 6 lamp fixture about 15 inches above the water line with montipora at the bottom of the tank (20" tall) and they are doing great.

Are you supplementing your tank with any additives or liquid foods? If your aquarium is low in nutrients, you may just need to add some supplements.

Dan

 

Thanks so its sounding like maybe to much light. I feed once a week oyster feast and smash up wild caught shrimp until it is nearly liquified once a week, any more than the I start to get algae problems.

 

So I unplugged one of my ballasts so now I am only going to run 4 t5 bulbs. We'll see if that helps.