Metal Halide Placement

[clamfoot]

I have a 48" Energy Savers lighting fixture with (2) 175watt 10K German Halides and (2) 40 watt 03 actinics installed, it's a standard fixture with a cooling fan.These halides are really bright compared to the fixture on my old tank which was 2 40 watt daylight bulbs. The fixture is designed to be placed directly on top of the tank, I have a 75g. glass reef tank. My question is, does anyone have a similar lighting arrangement placed directly on top of the tank? The tank looks awfully bright and whenever I place any new corals in the tank they don't open very wide and musrooms head for the bottom, also my green polyps which are on the bottom are curled up at the edges. I really have no way to get this fixture suspended above the tank, plus it sits in the den where the family sits and if I hang it above the tank the light hits everyone right in the eyes. Should I just get rid of the halides and get two 40 watt daylight flourescents?
Thanks

 

[davelin315]

Get rid of them and send them to me.

Actually, give it some time. The first time I put halides on my tank it hurt my eyes to look at it. Corals that get more light than they are acclimated to can burn and in response don't open up as much. Your mushrooms will multiply, but they won't be as large and expanded as they were before. IMO, this is because they don't have to work as hard as they used to to get the light they need. In stores when you see normal mushrooms extended out several inches and reaching towards the surface, these are seeking more light. This is not the way they appear in nature, as they are usually flat against the rock and their stalk is not extended. They are not high light creatures, but they do need some, and in nature they are often found in crevices and under other corals. To ease your tank to the lights (they will also even out after a few weeks, the bulbs need to get broken in), I would put a couple of pieces of wood on top of your tank and elevate your lights about 2 feet off the top if you can to start. Every few days, remove a piece of wood and lower the lights a bit. If you gradually do this, you can prevent your stuff from bleaching/getting burned. Also, by the time it's all the way down, you will be so used to it being so bright everywhere, that the tank's brightness won't be as severe.

 

[clamfoot]

Davelin315,
I'm new to this forum and I don't even know if you will see this reply, but her goes. You said,"Your mushrooms will multiply, but they won't be as large and expanded as they were before. IMO, this is because they don't have to work as hard as they used to to get the light they need. In stores when you see normal mushrooms extended out several inches and reaching towards the surface, these are
seeking more light. This is not the way they appear in nature, as they are usually flat
against the rock and their stalk is not extended. They are not high light creatures, but they do need some, and in nature they are often found in crevices and under other corals."

Wow, you hit the proverbial nail on the head, my mushrooms are behaving just as you explained. Problem is the green hammer coral I just placed in the tank is also remaining hidden/closed up, but he doesn't multiply the way shrooms do. Should I just wait and see or should I play Tim Allen and build some sort of a skirt for my light fixture,SIGH.
Thanks

 

[kjb]

My 2 cents...
build a skirt if you like, I would. It might make things look better in the long run and perhaps direct more light into the tank.
The suggestion to raise the light fixture seems like a good one. It should reduce the intensity and then you will be able to gradually lower the fixture as the tank gets used to the light.
I would suggest cutting back on the hours you light the tank, even if it messes with schedules a bit, then work it back to normal slowly. That might give things another way to get used to a shocking amount of illumination.

 

[davelin315]

One thing about building a skirt for your fixture is that it could hinder your fans on the hood and also trap any additional heat that is present outside the fixture and concentrate it on the water surface, heating up your tank. Also, aesthetically, you will not get the light ripple affect on your ceiling if you add the skirt, which is something I always loved about MH lighting. On the other hand, to solve all of these, you may want to build a fixture that you can suspend from the ceiling and mount your lights inside it. If you go this route, you can suspend the lights at any height you want (mount them into a beam) and you can also put the skirt around the lights directing it straight down into the tank and preventing it from turning your room into a tanning salon. Also, you will still get the reflected light to your ceiling. As far as your hammer coral is concerned, it's lighting demands are not as great as a sps coral, but it will acclimate to the lighting you are giving it and eventually flourish. It will also extend further from its skeleton than the mushrooms will, but this will be gradual, and it will probably not come out as far as it can, again, because it doesn't need to. Another possibility is to put it on the bottom of your tank and gradually move it up to about halfway up your tank. It probably shouldn't be on top anyway.

Also, most people on this forum will check their posts again and again (we must be real losers!) so if you have more questions, post them, someone will take a look.

 

[clamfoot]

davelin315,
I"m new to this forum and I haven't figured out how to see if anyone has responded to my post, without searching through all the posts, am I missing something here? Every other forum I've ever been on either sends you an e-mail that tells you someone has responded or a msg. pops up when you log in telling you there is a new msg. waiting for you.

 

[davelin315]

I don't know if that option is available or not, but you can do a search by your user number and show all of your threads.

 

[danmhippo]

I don't think this UBB has a feature like that, you will just have to come back and visit often. However, the only time I gets email notification is if someone sends me a private message.

I agree with previous posts, cut back hours of lights for your inhabitants to get used to the new lights. starts with only 4 hours a day, then gradually increase that to your normal lighting regime over a period of at least a week. BTW, corals and mushroom that are exposed only under NO or VHO may wither away after about 6 months due to light starvation. Ultimatly, you will have to switch back to MH for the best result if you want to keep most corals. OR, you can switch to keeping non-photosynthetic-dependent corals.

 

[clamfoot]

davelin315 writes-
>>One thing about building a skirt for your fixture is that it could hinder your fans on the hood and also trap any additional heat that is present outside the fixture and
concentrate it on the water surface, heating up your tank. Also, aesthetically, you will
not get the light ripple affect on your ceiling if you add the skirt, which is something I always loved about MH lighting.<<

I went ahead and built a skirt and raised the fixture. Actually the temp. dropped by 3 degrees and the ripple affect is more pronounced. I'll have to wait and see how it affects the animals.

I went ahead and built a sirt null