More coral questions

So, now that I have broken the ice and asked my first question, I have another

So we have a 72 gallon bowfront right now, with hopes of upgrading in a year or so. 2 rose bubble tip anemones, a couple lps, lots of little soft corals, some small polyp stonies, a small acan, and a small monti setosa. My water params are spot on, my calcium is at 480, kh is up to 11, and salinity is 1.026. Everything looks great. But I am wondering if I have enough lighting. We have 2 regular actinic, 1 pure actinic, and 1 10k white. Will these be sufficient in order to maintain color and support growth?



A lot of the stuff we get from our lfs seems to be low to moderate lighting, but I know the monit's need high light from my previous post. And we are wanting some more of them.

Sorry about the glare. Just wanted to give an idea of what the tank looks like. It gets a lot of natural lighting from the windows. There aren't any places in our living room that dont get a lot of natural light.

it wont hurt to upgrade since the depth of your tank is so great.or you can simply move the higher light demanding corals closer to the top of the aquarium so they get sufficent light.if you are not going to do many SPS you could get away with the lighting you have but i would recomend getting a couple more T-5s on there and adding some more 10,000 kelvins as they produce much more usuable light.all the actinics you have are really just making the coral look good not reall giving them the extra oomph of light form a 10,000.dont get me wrong some actinic is needed just not a ratio of 3-1..even though this will look its best to the human eye.
you could rock a halid on there and grown anything you ever wanted and then move the LPS down as to not give them sun burn

Ahhh, okay.

I think we could fit at least another T5 on there. I know Vince was thinking about halides, but they burn too fast, and don't have a long enough life span for our budget haha So if we were to add a couple more 10 k's that would be enough?

i have seen some amazing six bulb setups so yeah you could do some real nice coral with that.there are some reasonabley affordable halides out there if you are interested.

They will probably survive with that lighting but will thrive under more. T5 lighting is great. But with a tank that large and deep, you would need a 6-8 bulb fixture to really crank out super colorful corals. At that point, two halide bulbs are probably about the same as 6-8 good brand t5ho bulbs and you get more bang for the buck wih halides plus the shimmer etc. Two 150s (or 250s) would be great. Maybe even add one or two t5 that you have for supplement. Just some ideas.

Let me know if I can be of help with getting equipment

MVP knows his trade he has helped me with getting a couple of my setups in order.I do like my halides

So we decided to go with a 6 bulb set up for now (3 actinic and 3 10k white), and eventually going to go with the Kessil LED's. It seems like halides are gradually getting pushed out by LED's. What do you guys think about LED's?

i honestly think that halides are going to be around for a while they will simply be improved upon to become more efficent and have less envirmental impact by design.halides are hard to rival and the proof is in the pudding so to speak.on anothe note thhere are some super nice LEDs on the market right now and some of them do rival the halide in light output and many have features that would not be possible with a halide such as dimmable blue,white,and actinic LED lights.there are pros and cons to all lightings and every system has some differnt needs.i love my kessel and i certainly like the SOLs and radion but i still see the most results from halides.now if heat and power consumption are an issue then maybe something else is for you but its always good to wiegh up the options.

I have a love-hate relationship with my all LED setup.

Love the power saving and flexibility.

Love the very high output Possibly too high!

Love the possibility of dimmable (haven't done it yet though)

Hate the slower growth of my stonies. They survive great and have good color, but growth is obviously slower than with halides and seems a tad slower than with t-5s.

Absolutely Love the lower heat with LEDs! Right now, I would be in crisis mode if I had halides. My tank is too hot for my liking as it is.

Hate the high initial cost of LEDs. Don't tell my wife how much those fixtures cost. Really, best we never talk about it again.

Love the idea that I won't be changing bulbs for a while. By the time I feel the need to change my lights, there will be some amazing options out there. Better be.

Good luck. BTW, I had tremendous success with t5 lighting for a number of years. 6 bulbs seems perfectly suited for your setup. Remember you can control some of the light requirements by moving corals up or down.

Thank you for all the information!