Light Tube Recommendation

[Bluebeard]

hey hope you guys can help,

my brother current is using a strong light with 2 36W PL tube, 1 tube of 10,000K white light and 1 tube of antrinic light (blue light).

tank is 2feet, light casing is 2feet, tank with coral without chilller but got fan.

i have a few questions,

what is the blue light for? for growing coral?

is the white light too strong?

his tank is growing lots of algea and purple and grow stuffs, the shop at balestier told him that the lights are too strong, ask him to change to purple/ultraviolet lights, what kind of light is this?

i need to change my bro's light tube to suitable ones, can anyone help please? thanks!!!

[Achilles Tang]

my brother current is using a strong light with 2 36W PL tube, 1 tube of 10,000K white light and 1 tube of antrinic light (blue light).

what is the blue light for? for growing coral?

is the white light too strong?

his tank is growing lots of algea and purple and grow stuffs, the shop at balestier told him that the lights are too strong, ask him to change to purple/ultraviolet lights, what kind of light is this?

i need to change my bro's light tube to suitable ones, can anyone help please? thanks!!!

Ans: The blue light is probably ordinary blue lights or it could be the true actinic 03 light. You have to double check.

The diff... blue light is light blue in colour and does not make corals flourescent much. The actinic one is deep purple and corals glow in the dark! The price diff is also pretty obvious: actinics are very expensive for PL lights.

PL lights, white or blue, are never too strong. The appearance of nuisance algae or cyanobacteria is because of excessive nutrients or phosphates in the water.

If you are using 6500k bulbs, that might also be the cause as it is believed the high amounts of reds and yellows in the light spectrum is well-liked by algae.

You do not need to change any lights as your 10,000k and actinics (pls check) are fine.

Hope that helps.

ps - I moved your post to this forum as it is more appropriate.

Achilles

[chanbi]

I been using the same setting in my former 2f tank and it runs fine. And after u work out the number, it is roughly about 1g = ~2.7W of light which is suitable for marine (some even find it low). But i guess there is one more question that need to ans. How long does your bro on the light?

btw, when u mentioned purple algae is it the coraline algae? I thought that is good and will only show up when u have good water quality?

[ong]

For marine light spec. Usually will be 1g=3~5w. 2.7w is on the low side but that depend what kind of live stocks you have. Purple algae or coraline is a good sign. That means that your water condition is good and contain high Ca, reading should at 450~500. Just my comments.

[Bluebeard]

hey thanks guys!

i will have to check for my bro!

i think his actinic PL light is not really true one as it's more blue than purple.

where can i get a good actinic PL or FL? how much each???

[bawater]

bluebeard,

if i'm not wrong, the tank is still cycling & its a diatom bloom(mostly happens during the first few months) (they look in the range from dark red to brown) just like the blue-green algae in freshwater aquariums.

a full safe cycle will be ard 3mths until everything established.Its takes much longer than freshwater.

only after 6mths did mine stop.

pointing a powerhead towards the algae bloom will help to reduce it over time.

the actinic part is really needed if u do not use metal H. lighting(if using FL it sort of becomes compulsory)-should be the same for PL. u will be surprised how much of this light help corals grow.

But stick to hardy ones like button & star polyps,mushrooms,bubbles,leathers etc.(these inveterbrates also allow u to mix wif more fishes & shrimps)

stay clear of clams & stony corals unless u ensure calcium & very high amt of light.

[hongqixian]

bluebeard,

if i'm not wrong, the tank is still cycling & its a diatom bloom(mostly happens during the first few months) (they look in the range from dark red to brown) just like the blue-green algae in freshwater aquariums.

a full safe cycle will be ard 3mths until everything established.Its takes much longer than freshwater.

only after 6mths did mine stop.

pointing a powerhead towards the algae bloom will help to reduce it over time.

the actinic part is really needed if u do not use metal H. lighting(if using FL it sort of becomes compulsory)-should be the same for PL. u will be surprised how much of this light help corals grow.

But stick to hardy ones like button & star polyps,mushrooms,bubbles,leathers etc.(these inveterbrates also allow u to mix wif more fishes & shrimps)

stay clear of clams & stony corals unless u ensure calcium & very high amt of light.

Bawater, I'm adding a bit to your post, hope you don't mind

Actinics are needed is the color temp. of the lights in Kelvin are below

10 000k . That's because those lights are too close to the red spectrum for comfort.

The calcium and high light part is perfectly right. Do you mean bubble corals? Aren't those hard corals???

[Bluebeard]

wah thank you so much guys!!!

i don't really mean algea in my tank but my bro mind, his tank is even more new than mine and he's doing things fast.

[bawater]

thks hong,

forgot to add. abt 10k & below. actually 10k also need.

bubbles seem to do fine with my FL- but i feed them regular wif pieces of prawns- every2-3days, when i feed anemones.

i just use liquid calcium supp.

blue- got to chk whether the tube is a moon or reaL acitinic, the blue moon tubes are mainly used just for viewing.

[Bluebeard]

wah.. so many things to look for! i will have to ask the shop owne at nature then... really new in this field.

[hongqixian]

bubbles seem to do fine with my FL- but i feed them regular wif pieces of prawns- every2-3days, when i feed anemones.

Bawater,

I read somewhere that anemones use up quite a lot of energy just to digest foods, so it would be better to feed less or more digestible particles such as mysis. P.S What anemones do you have?

I remember once I was at The Reef World and I saw a tubeworm poking out of the sand in the carpet anemone tank. It had a pretty nice crown and I wanted to buy it, so I dug a bit for it's tube. When I found the tube the worm jumped out the other end and got stuck on a carpet! It was too late to save it.... gone in 5 secs. Lucky for me no one saw.....

[Achilles Tang]

Bawater,

I read somewhere that anemones use up quite a lot of energy just to digest foods, so it would be better to feed less or more digestible particles such as mysis. P.S What anemones do you have?

I remember once I was at The Reef World and I saw a tubeworm poking out of the sand in the carpet anemone tank. It had a pretty nice crown and I wanted to buy it, so I dug a bit for it's tube. When I found the tube the worm jumped out the other end and got stuck on a carpet! It was too late to save it.... gone in 5 secs. Lucky for me no one saw.....

Haha... I'll tell Kenny and have you banned from stepping in to his shop!

j/k lah!

[hongqixian]

Haha... I'll tell Kenny and have you banned from stepping in to his shop!

j/k lah!

LOL! Lucky for me that I never told him my name.....

[bawater]

Qixian- i got 2 rose bulbs,1 purple tip(in hiding)& 1 small sand anemone.

this is one of the rose-

increased abt 1/4 of its size already, on regular feedings every 3-4days.

The other i feed every 7days.Not much increase-maybe 5% only.

But i use FL so got to supplement. just got 6x 36w PL- should fit them on by this week.

[Achilles Tang]

Congrats on your rose anemone, Bawater... it looks lovely!

I have been hunting for a red rose all these years and never saw one for sale...

[hongqixian]

Very nice indeed! You must be proud to have such nice anemones! Is that the purple tip in the background?

[bawater]

i'm happy cause they were free & now they're growing. always wanted a clown/anemone pair.

My tomato wouldn't take to it.

Q- nope, that's a frogspawn behind it. but has since got off its skeleton & crawled into rockwork.

ach- try pac marine, these should have been abt $5 each cause they're small- they guy i took from had everything from pac marine- LR,tnk,skimmer,livestock,MH lights etc.

[Achilles Tang]

a frogspawn coral can get off its skeleton and still live????!

How is that possible?? Can you show us a pix?

[Anemone]

hmm... im feeding my purple-tip everyday.

is that wrong?

coz i using FL too, decide to supplement food more often. (mysis)

its been a month n the anemone is still healthy.

yours sincerely love anemones,

jon.