Just added MH's. Unbelievable difference

[saltyguy]

Just upgraded my lights from 390 watts of pc to two 250w 20k MH with 2 65w pc 50/50. I got a retro fit mh kit and took apart my 130 watt pc fixture and combined it all in my canopy. Here's a pic.

 

[emperor11]

Hey Saltyguy! Looks 500000000000000000 % better! I love it!! Keep it up!!
~Emperor11

 

[jumpfrog]

Nice!

 

[connor]

Beautiful tank!!! its awesome!!

 

[dburr]

NICE

Don't forget to acclimate

 

[hurt]

Looks great, but where's the before pic?

 

[murph145]

nice look close to mine i have 2-250W DE 20K's plus another 180W of 10K PC

 

[saltyguy]

here is a before and after pic. Hard to tell the difference from pics put in person it is night and day difference.

 

[blazehok68]

thats a hell of a difference! way to go!

 

[oceana]

it wont just be the brightness. your about to see stuff happen in your tank you never thought you would.
corals will color up like crazy, most will start to grow like weeds. your zoanthids will change to completely difffernt morphs. all sorts of crazy stuff will happen.
BTW like said above make sure you dont just start with that lighting right off the bat.
or atleast shorten your normal cycle. you can burn corals that way

 

[travisa]

Originally Posted by SALTYGUY
Just upgraded my lights from 390 watts of pc to two 250w 20k MH with 2 65w pc 50/50. I got a retro fit mh kit and took apart my 130 watt pc fixture and combined it all in my canopy. Here's a pic.
How big is your tank? Just wondering b/c i want to switch over to MH also eventually. Are yours mounted in a canopy? How far are they above the water surface? How much did you temperature rise?

 

[saltyguy]

Thanks everyone for comments and suggestions. I ran the lights 3 hours yesterday and today and am going to bump up to 4 tomorrow and so on. Seems like my xenia and zoanthids really appreciate the new lights they look better than ever. The tank is 75g and I mounted them into a canopy I made myself. I don't have any fans installed yet but I did remove the lid in the canopy for right now. My Temp maxes out at around 82.5, but I turned my heater up so it wounldn't drop below 80 at night. This way there is less fluctuation from day to night.

 

[jurichar]

a few fans will fix that right up. I just put 2 DE 150's in a 6 inch canopy (the uv shield is 2" off the water) and w/ a few 3" fans from radio shack my heater has to come on to keep the tank at 79 deg.
BTW...I notice the same dramatic difference from 400 watts of pc to 300 of halide. My corals have gone crazy. I think i've split more mushrooms in two weeks than i did in two months before.....nothing short of amazing!!!

 

[funkyman]

I started using an MH/PC fixture over the past weekend myself. I'm anxious to see how my corals respond. This week I have the MH's on for 2 hours, next week 3 hours ect....

 

[shnabbles]

Sweet now you can through a clam and some SPS in there!

 

[clearreef]

Looks Amazeing Good Job!

 

[wax32]

I wish you well!
I am actually going the reverse route.
I was running a 250w MH 20k bulb plus 150w of VHO actinics. Then I swapped the 150w for 380w of actinics. My zoanthids went ape in a good way.

This weekend I'll be swapping the 250w MH for 190w of 10k VHO and another 95w of actinic for a grand total of 475w of actinic and 190w of 10k, all VHO.

 

[saltyguy]

Actually today I added a couple SPS. I have already noticed a huge difference in the colors of my zoanthids. I was using 50/50 pc's for accents but went over to 10k's and the color is perfect now.