Installing Metal Halides

[otter]

Well, I couldn't pass up this deal. A gentleman in Santa Barbara downsized his reef from 100g to 30g leaving his Hamilton 36 inch Dual 250w 14K MH lights unusable. I bought the lights, ballasts, new bulbs, and a set of back up bulbs for $100!!! Now I have to install them. Since I do not have a canopy I will hang them from the cieling. My tank is 20" deep. I was thinking about hanging them about 15" from the top of the tank. What is the best way to acclimate my fish to the new lights? Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated.
60gallon reef (48x15x20)
110 lbs LR
GSM
Foxface
Canary Wrasse
3 striped Damsel
"Frosty" the SFE
315w of PC (50/50)

 

[fishfreak1242]

Originally Posted by otter
http:///forum/post/2703098
Well, I couldn't pass up this deal. A gentleman in Santa Barbara downsized his reef from 100g to 30g leaving his Hamilton 36 inch Dual 250w 14K MH lights unusable. I bought the lights, ballasts, new bulbs, and a set of back up bulbs for $100!!! Now I have to install them. Since I do not have a canopy I will hang them from the cieling. My tank is 20" deep. I was thinking about hanging them about 15" from the top of the tank. What is the best way to acclimate my fish to the new lights? Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated.
60gallon reef (48x15x20)
110 lbs LR
GSM
Foxface
Canary Wrasse
3 striped Damsel
"Frosty" the SFE
315w of PC (50/50)
Since you don't have any corals, there is no need for an in depth acclimation. What you should do is get the lights set up and start out with only 4 hours of light each day for a few days. Then start to raise it slowly to 5 hours, then 6 hours, until you finally reach the time period that you want. Just be sure to go slow, when I first put up my new MH, I got an outbreak of Cyano Bacteria and a lot of Algae. There is an alternative to this method if you want to. The other way is to cover the top of your tank with egg crate. Then over the egg crate, put a few layers of window screening. And every few days remove a layer of screening. This is also an effective way of acclimating your tank to the light.

 

[otter]

Thanks Fishfreak. I guess I should have remembered to put in my lonley Pavona "Cactus" sps coral.

I have eggcrate over the top now to keep Frosty in.