How often to replace your bulbs... hair algae!

[farnorth]

I got my tank about 3 months ago used. Before that the same tank with the same rock, live sand, etc. had been going for over a year. Within the past month I have begun to get a lot of hair algae and my water quality is perfect and my lights are only on for 7 hrs a day. I have over 100 snails/crabs and they are munching on it now, but am wondering how often I should replace my lights, because I don't know how long the previous owner had the lights.
I have a corallife 48" pro with lunar lamps, double ended metal halides, blue actinic compact fluorescents. If I should replace them, should I replace all of them or only one type of the lights? How often in the future?

 

[reckler]

actinics should be replaced 6 to 8 months. MH should be replaced 1 year to 1 1/2 year.

 

[farnorth]

ok, so I should probably replace the actinics to be safe. I think I will leave the halides for now. Also I have the halides turning on first, then leave them both on for 7 hrs, then leave the halides on for another 1/2 hr before the moonlights come on. Is this correct? should I leave them both on for the full 7 hrs?

 

[reckler]

usually you want to simulate the natural lighting process in nature.
I have my moons on 24/7, My actinics come on 2 hours before my daylights do. when the daylights go off the actinics stay on 2 hours after.
That kinda resembles how the sun rises and falls in the sky.
Some people probably run theirs at different times.

 

[farnorth]

That sounds like a good system, but why would you leave the moons on all the time?

 

[jroath87]

i dont think the light bulbs are effecting your hair algae growth if its was a tank that was already running for awhile. Did you save the water when you moved the tank from the original setup? Is the tank in direct sunlight? And finally have you done a phosphate test to see if the water you are using is too high in phosphates?

 

[farnorth]

Thanks for the info... actually my Ph was WAY high for a while it was at 8.70 for a while and I have finally got it down to 8.27. Almost all of the hair algae is gone, but that is also because I followed GARF's recomendation and got 100 crabs/snails, but now I think it also must be because my PH went down.