Need some lighting help with Zoas

I'd personally kick your actinics up to 12 hours and leave everything else the same.

For zoas though your current schedule should be fine if thats all your going to keep

mushrooms, green star polyps, kenya tree, leathers, xenia, pretty much anything soft

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jstdv8 

mushrooms, green star polyps, kenya tree, leathers, xenia, pretty much anything soft

+1

If you want fancier stuff, all it would really take is better quality bulbs in the fixture.  Take a look at your fixture and see if each T5 bulb is housed in its own reflector.  If so, then its a quality fixture.  Depending on the colors you have, maybe higher color tempature lights (12K to 18K) would be better.  If you are happy with your color now, no need to change it.

having its own reflector doesnt make it quality. With your fixture and your future bulb upgrade, you should be able to keep montiporas and LPS

individual reflectors make it better than the cheap ones.  I wasnt saying it was the best, but individual reflectors does make it better than the basic units.

i wonder if anyone still makes straight reflectors

yeah the nova extremes are flat reflectors

the nova extreme pro's are contoured

the old nova extremes from 3+ years ago were flat. they were switched to contoured. i had a 4x24w non-pro model and it was contoured. I'm pretty sure no one makes straight reflectors anymore

I didn't know that. when I bought mine in Oct of 09' they were still flat on the non-pro models

must have been the retailer you purchased from because i ordered mine in september 09 and they were already contoured

Quote:

Originally Posted by teaggs 

I just got 2 rocks with some Zoas. This is my first time with any coral. I have a 135 Oceanic with Aquaticlife 72" T5. 10,000K daylights, actinic and moonlights. So far they are slowly opening up and look healthy, but I do not have a lot of experience with light cycles, so thats why I am asking. How long should I be running each light daily? Right now, I am running Actinic for 10 hours with 10,000K during 8 hours of that time. I have the moonlights come on about 15 mins before the Actinics go off and run all night till the Actinics come back on in the morning. I have a  pinktail trigger and a small puffer, thats it. So basically, the tank is never completely dark, is that ok? Any input or advice will be much appreciated. Thanks

Mine are on for about 12 hrs as well. I do mine 3 hrs before 10,000 go on and 3 hrs after. Moonlight goes on 30 min before lights go on and 30 min before lights go off. I do turn mine off for a few hours about 4 hrs to give everything total darkness. Some corals and organisms need a period of total darkness.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikeSB 

must have been the retailer you purchased from because i ordered mine in september 09 and they were already contoured

So then what is the difference between the two models? I thought the contoured reflectors was what made it "Pro"

Sorry for the slight hijacking of the thread :)

the pro was because it had 6 bulbs instead of 4 i believe