Changing from 5.5K to 10K bulbs, how should I....

nasotang00

nasotang00

Member
On April 1, 2002 I installed 2 175w 5.5k Venture bulb to my system. Currently I have the following:
2 175w 5.5k
1 96w PC blue
1 96w PC Smartlight
1 65w PC blue
Photo period is:
Blues ON 12 hrs.
MH ON 9 hrs.
Tomorrow I will be getting my Ushio 10k bulbs. Should I decrease the mh photo period for the first few days or weeks so as to not completly stress/kill my sps and lps corals. If so, how many hours should I keep them on for and for what length of time (in days or weeks) should this last? :confused:
All and any help is appreciated.
 
new

new

Member
i have a question along these lines. i was going to change my 2 55w pc to 10k bulbs will this be of any bnefit or would i be better off getting a 65w ballast ?
 
adrian

adrian

Active Member
Ushio 10K bulbs not only burn at a higer kelvin temp, but they are also a lot brighter, you should be prepared to acclimate your corals to the increase in intensity by either cutting the photoperiod bakc and gradually increasing it, or elevating the lights and lowering them a little everyday, either way its a good idea to accliamte over a period of at least a week. HTH
 
nasotang00

nasotang00

Member
Adrain, no offence to any of the other here, their input is well appreciated but yours was the one I was waiting for.
Thanks. I knew that the 10k bulbs were more intense and had a feeling I was looking at this correctly.
 
adrian

adrian

Active Member
Falcon63, check this study out, might help a little, its a little out of date now, but having pesonally used both the175 watt venture 55K and the ushio 10ks I can say there is quite a difference in their performance, believe it or not there is more of a diffence in intesnsity than there is spectrum.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/...omparison.html
 
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