New light.. Run time question

Hellooo all. I got a new light in today for my 40 breeder, its a 250w halide with 4 T5's.. Currently I'm running a 4 bulb T5 setup, which I have on from 1pm to 12am.. With an hour of just actinics an hr after they come on and before they go off. I'll be putting the new light on the tank tmrw.. So my question was, how should I change the lighting schedule? Obviously its a pretty big upgrade.. So I wasn't sure how many hrs I should keep them running to start? Then slowly add time each day or what? Your help its greatly appreciated!

 

bump!

 

I would suggest running the T5s the same as your old unit, and start with only 1 or 2 hours of MH in the middle of the schedule to emulate high noon. Just keep a close eye on your corals; some might not appreciate the "improved" lighting regardless how long or how hard you try to acclimate.

 

Yeahh I assumed a few might bleach.. We'll see. Now the fixture came with 4 actinics in it.. Should I run just those the same as my old schedule? Or would it be better to put a few daylights on there from my old fixture?

 

Hmmm... it would probably help to just keep the actinics in as the daylights are going to provide nearly the same color spectrum as the MH with excellent PAR.

 

okay soo 1pm actinics go on then halides for just 2 hrs to start, say 6 to 8, then just actinics till 12..? Also how long should I wait to start increasing the photo period?

 

I'd go with increasing 1 hour every 2 or 3 days until the corals start showing discomfort, then back off 1/2 hour and start increasing 1/2 hour per week.

 

+1 on Mr. Bill

I recently upgraded from 6 x T5 to 2 x 250 watt MH
I started with just 4 hours each day for 3 days
then did 5 hours per day for next 4 days
then 6 hours per day for subsequent 3 days
then 7 hours per day for next 4 days
at 8 hours per day, one of my Acan colonies started to close up before the end of 8 hours so I left it at 8 hours only for about 1 week, until the Acan in question was still open at 8, at which time I increased to 9
I continued like this , monitoring that Acan until it had adjusted and then increased
by about 1 hour each week over the next 2 or 3 weeks until I got up to 11, which is the time I have them on now.

if you have LPS corals in the tank, watch these the closest as if they are getting light fatigued, they will start to close up
if this happens, I would turn the lights off at that stage simply because any SPS corals you have, do not have the ability to let you know they have had enough (they cannot retract to expose less flesh to the light, like LPS corals can)

if at the end of the chosen period all the corals are still open , the following day you could try increasing by half hour to 1 hour

Steve

 

Thanks a lot steve, I appreciate it. That's exactly what I was looking for!