msemanuel

Right now I have a standard 15 watt light fixture on my tank. I plan on upgrading to a corallife luner light that is 135 watt fixture. So my question is how do i acclimate my tank to the more intense lights.

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mike & cindy

29 gallon frag tank?
25 gallon freshwater
55 gallon reef tank
10 gallon community tank

saltyfish dude

my suggestion would be to start off just using the actnic (blue light) first w/o turning on the white light for a day or two. You don't want to shock any of the fish who are used to the low lighting with BANG! 135 watts out of nowhere! This can cause a great deal of stress on the fish and can trigger things like ich and can cause other problems and maybe even kill some of the more delicate fish ( I'm not sure what kind of fish you have). After youve used 1/2 of the light for a couple days, you can go ahead and use the brighter light (white) and turn off the actnic light before doing so. Then after a day or two you should be able to turn on the lights full power and everything should be fine ( turning on the white light in the first part of the day, waiting a couple hours then adding the second light). then you should be fine. Of course I am assuming you got the coralife compact flourescent with at least to seperate power switches, and have both types of bulbs (white and actnic). If not either of these, maybe you could rig up your lighting so that it is not as close to the top of the water as usual (maybe 2 feet above) and the light intensity will be more dispersed and not so direct. and eventually lower it into place with full power over the course of, again, a few days. This would work very well also. Remember, any fish or livestock you may have, have been under enough stress to this point in their transition to the captive aquarium. You don't what to throw a bright light out of nowhere, directly on them as well. Good luck, and let me know if anything I mentioned does not work with your new lighting system you got, and I'll see what I can come up with then. happy marine keeping, Neal in Grover Beach, CA

Radom

Correct me if i'm wrong but ich is a parasite and you just dont happen to get it out of the blue or from heavy lighting unless you introduce it to your tank from an ouside source?

msemanuel

thanks for the ideas. any other suggestions

__________________
mike & cindy

29 gallon frag tank?
25 gallon freshwater
55 gallon reef tank
10 gallon community tank

saltyfish dude

I will correct you because you mis interpreted what I said. I mentioned nothing of "out of the blue" and everyone and anyone knows that stress can definatly trigger an oncoming or breakout of ich (if traces are already present somewhere in the aquarium). When a fish is stressed they are always more susceptible to ich as wellas other numerous diseases and conditions. these are the facts......

Radom

I need to argue this If there is ich larva in your tank it does not matter eitherway. Your fish will most likely get it regardless of light or no light or stress. Ich life cycle is triggered by fish presence and its a burrowing parasite. If no fish in the tank, the larva can be dormant for sometime time (thats why if your tank appears to be ich free after outbreak, upon reintroducing of new fish the ich is back). As long as you have fish in same tank, the larva will hatch and your fish is subject to the 2nd and 3rd life cycle of the ich (the actual fish infection where the larva burrows itself into fishes body and production of new ich larva). What I'm saying is that ich is not a triggered event brought by fishes stress or change in lighting. True if fish is stressed its more likely to not survive ich outbreak but we are talking about lights here and acclimation of the tank to new higher intensity lights. Your argument is unrelated to lights and the original intent of this topic in my view.

Chitown1

You absolutely need to acclimate to a change in lighting. What I do is to keep the new fixtures higher over the tank lowering it slowly over the period of a couple week to the normal mounting height, as well as moving some of the more sensitive corals to a lower light area of the tank and bringing them back to their normal areas slowly.

msemanuel

thank you for the info and suggestions i have heard about lowering the light slowlystill waiting to get my new light. in the mean time i'll take more sugesstions

__________________
mike & cindy

29 gallon frag tank?
25 gallon freshwater
55 gallon reef tank
10 gallon community tank

Nereaga

I am starting a FOWLR in a 55 gallon tank.... I want good lighting for display... I found a light on ebay, it was a 48'' Power Compact... Two 24'' lights... 2 10k and 2 actinic blues... will this be sufficent for this setup? and can I add anemones with this lighting setup? or should i upgrade to the 20k lights instead??? Im a begginer so I wont be adding inverts until I get the hang of things... Thanks

Chitown1

I have seen a couple and know there are people who have kept certain anenomes with PC lighting, but I was never successful until I upgraded to MH. And as for the k rating of the bulb for the light you are getting. The k is for kelvin which is the coloration of the light, not the intensity. The higher the number (20,000k), the whiter the light, the lower the number (6500K) the yellower the light, so the k rating will depend on the depth of the tank and your personal preference.