lighting over 240 reef tank

[danny240]

I have a 240 gallon aquarium in my wall with 4 96 watt compacts, 400 watt metal halide 10k and a 250 mh 20k and another 250 on its way. My tank is 8'x2'x2' how far should I keep my lights hanging from the top of the tank. Also how long should I keep them on I am triying to use my compact for early morning and evening lighting.

 

[Curtswearing]

If there are lenses (like on a DE MH) that will protect the bulb from splashes, you can go around 5 inches. Unprotected bulbs should be slightly higher.

BTW, make sure that you have the MH's oriented correctly. The bulbs should be perpendicular to the front glass, not parallel. I can't tell you how many times I've seen it the other way.

 

[SueT]

kind of depends on what corals you are keeping or intend to keep. Some corals need a longer photoperiod and some don't...

 

[danny240]

I have sps corals and some hard corals mainly recordia, zoo's, mushrooms, montipora, but mostly soft corals.

 

[SueT]

I would think with the majority of soft corals that your photoperiod could be less. Enough to keep the sps happy though..

 

[danny240]

what should my photo period be how many hours a day? Right now I am average around 10hrs a day.

 

[balogh03]

That sounds pretty good, i think that 10hrs is the middle and then you can gain or lose about 2hrs from that just by personal preferance.

good luck

-augustus

 

[SueT]

I run my halides 11 hours a day. But my tank is all sps. Since you have soft corals also you seem to have a good light period. If you see some of the soft corals shrinking you might cut them back to less. If not the photoperiod sounds fine.

 

[danny240]

I have noticed that some of my red mushrooms seem to have shrunk up and some of the green recordia but the orange recordia is fine. Although my zoanthids seem to come out just a little while then close up but when they open it is not fully opening up. I had my water chekced and every this was perfect but calcium was a little high but not bad.