i need to knownif my lighting is high enough for a hammer coral

[cheryleggleston]

Hello
hey everyone I need to know if stock lighting in a biocube 29 gal is high enough for a hammer coral and the lighting is pc/led 10,000k 36 watt white light and then the 10,000k 36 watt atnic blue and led bar with 3 led lights so if anyone can help and tell me if I need to upgrade then I'll get the steves led sps extreme.
-thanks Cheryl.

 

[2quills]

Should be about enough if you keep the coral placed in the top half of the tank. PC´s lose much of their power after several months so it's best to replace bulbs twice a year.

 

[cheryleggleston]

K I'll keep that in mind but I am still thinking about getting the steves LEDs.

 

[2quills]

Wouldn't argue with ya if you did.

 

[pegasus]

I have a wall hammer coral frag thriving under PC lamps. I have two 96W bulbs that are 50/50. Each bulb is half 10000K White and 460nm Actinic. They are in a 4' fixture mounted on top of a 6' tank. My hammer coral sits on the substrate in the front corner of my tank, which puts it exactly 24" from the closest point of the lamp, and it's been there for three months. I feed it a few amphipods about once a week, and it's as healthy as can be. It's not extended in this picture, but at times, it stretches out so much that it nearly touches the sand. I have a Marineland 24"-36" Reef Capable w/timer LED lamp on my 24 gallon tank, and the only thing that lamp grows is nuisance algae. It bleached out all the live rocks that were in it, so I'm actually going in the opposite direction. I am going to replace the LED lamp with a PC or T5 fixture. I had an LED lamp on my refugium, and my Chaeto kept getting smaller and smaller, until the basketball sized Chaeto was the size of a tennis ball. I removed the LED lamp and bought a reflector lamp and a 23W CFL screw-in daylight bulb. The CFL has grown my Chaeto from a tennis ball to a basketball in one month, and coralline algae is covering the rubble in the fuge. In other words, LED's haven't worked out for me.

 

[2quills]

I have a wall hammer coral frag thriving under PC lamps. I have two 96W bulbs that are 50/50. Each bulb is half 10000K White and 460nm Actinic. They are in a 4' fixture mounted on top of a 6' tank. My hammer coral sits on the substrate in the front corner of my tank, which puts it exactly 24" from the closest point of the lamp, and it's been there for three months. I feed it a few amphipods about once a week, and it's as healthy as can be. It's not extended in this picture, but at times, it stretches out so much that it nearly touches the sand. I have a Marineland 24"-36" Reef Capable w/timer LED lamp on my 24 gallon tank, and the only thing that lamp grows is nuisance algae. It bleached out all the live rocks that were in it, so I'm actually going in the opposite direction. I am going to replace the LED lamp with a PC or T5 fixture. I had an LED lamp on my refugium, and my Chaeto kept getting smaller and smaller, until the basketball sized Chaeto was the size of a tennis ball. I removed the LED lamp and bought a reflector lamp and a 23W CFL screw-in daylight bulb. The CFL has grown my Chaeto from a tennis ball to a basketball in one month, and coralline algae is covering the rubble in the fuge. In other words, LED's haven't worked out for me.


Any theories as to why you ran into some of those issues with leds?

 

[pegasus]

My theory for the 24G is that the lamp is too strong. I initially had a fluorescent lamp fixture on it, but thought the LED would be better for corals if I wanted to put some in that tank. Many of the rocks in that tank were fairly new "reef saver" rocks, but there were a few existing rocks that had coralline algae covering them. I had a chili coral that I had pulled from my DT after it laid flat on the substrate for 4 months, even though it was under a rock ledge. After a week of being exposed to the LED lamp, it stood up. After two weeks, it had several polyps extended. After a month, it was covered in polyps. Okay... I thought maybe the light wasn't too much. Then my rocks turned whiter and whiter, so I assumed they were bleaching from too much light. I reduced the photoperiod to 8 hours per day, but it didn't help. All my rocks are now white, except for the rocks covered in green slime.

The refugium lamp was too weak. My refugium chamber is 16"x16" with 10" of water. Although the lamp was advertised as perfect for refugiums, it failed to tell what size refugium. That one was on me, because I didn't do my homework and choose the proper wattage. I assumed a 6x1W LED lamp would be sufficient if it was 3" above the water. It wasn't. My refugium was almost completely barren of macro algae and had no coralline algae before I swapped lamps. The picture shows how it looks after one month with a cheapo (under $20 total) lamp and bulb.

 

[pegasus]

Oh... the tank is a 24 x 12 x 18 bowfront. The specs for the lamp are Par/LUX @ 12" 130/12700, Par/LUX @ 24" 64/5870, Lumens: 1670. If I were to guess (I know there's a formula for it, but I'm too tired to look for it), I'd say the Par/LUX should be somewhere around 97/9285 @ 18".

I had considered purchasing another lamp and install them in my 125G DT, but I quickly changed my mind after setting this one on one side of the DT. The beam is so narrow, that the tank is dark on the front or back, depending on where the lamp is located. I realized I would need three more lamps to give complete coverage, so I scrapped that idea. Maybe one day I can afford a couple of Kessils...