Lighting for corals

[cathy joe]

Ok looking at this sight and reading all this stuff has got me wondering if our lighting is good enough for our corals. We ordered this light at our lfs it cost us 279.00 I'm not exactly sure what kind of light's it is but it has 2 blue light's and 2 white light's and it has moonlight's here's a pic of it.
ok here is what we have so far..alot of mushrooms some button polyps, green star polyps, button anemones, xenia, and we are trying our luck again on some anemone's so we went with the cheapest they had to see if it would live before we went and bought the expensive one's. It is a candilactic anemone..not sure about the spelling but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Any input greated appreaciated.

 

[eaglefan]

Looks like u have pc lights. Are they two bulbs together with 4 prongs on the end? If so they are not that good for anemones imo.

 

[viper_930]

You can keep soft corals and some LPS corals up high. What wattage is each bulb? It should say on the bulb.

 

[cathy joe]

yes it has 2 light togeather of each..not sure about the prong's though my husband set it up and he's at work so I can't ask him. So what did we pay for if it's not too good for anemone's?
We told our lfs what we wanted it for when we bought it but at the time we bought it we had nothing we were just starting.
So could I buy better bulb's to put in it or will we need to buy a whole new set up. And when we get our 75 gallon tank in a couple month's what kind of light's should we buy. We mostly want coral's and anemone's. the first anemone we bought (a carpet anemone) it died within hours. Our phosphate was way up at the time...we didn't know you couldn't use tap water..lol.. but we quickly learned our lesson!! So what do you suggest?
My husband thinks that we can use that light for a little while on our 75 put on on half of the tank and keep corals under that side of the tank..but I'm not to sure of that? He thinks the lighting that come's with the tank and this light will be enough. What do you think?

 

[cathy joe]

if it say's what wattage it is I'm not seeing it but then again I can barely see up under the light..lol I don't want to pick it up because I'm afraid of dropping it. So what wattage would you suggest?
and if I need to get a whole new light set for our 75 then what is the best to get and about how much does it run?

 

[eaglefan]

using just pc's on a 75 is not at all a good idea the light spectrum will not go down that deep. Carpets need to have the mh lighting. If you search the web you can find a mh (metal hallid) pc combo or a mh vho combo kit for about the same price. LFS most of the time don't know as much as they should there are some good ones out there though.
Email me at pjschuch@aol.com and I can help you out if you need it.

 

[ratpack]

you have and Orbit 2x65 or 2x95. in a 30g that will be enough for low lighting corals and some medium lighting corals at the very top of the tank. but if you have a 2x96 you can keep medium light coral anywere in the tank

 

[cathy joe]

ok our lighting is a 2x65 orbit is this good enough for a frog spawn just untill we get the 75gallon tank?
Oh and my husband and I decided to go ahead and get the hanglight's for the 75gallon tank. After talking to all of you we believe that would be the best thing to get.

 

[cathy joe]

sorry mh lighting...lol...hang lighting..lol

 

[eaglefan]

you and your corals will be very happy that you went with mh's

 

[ophiura]

The anemone you have is a Condylactus anemone and is not, IMO, as picky about lighting as others are (eg a carpet). It should, however, get a nice hunk of shrimp or something else meaty nice and regularly. I would hold off adding any more anemones to that tank - not only because of lighting, but you also need to no that anemones will move, and they can sting things in their way. In a closely packed tank, that may not be desirable.
You have 4 bulbs in the current fixture, 2 actinic blues and 2 white, all 65W?

 

[cathy joe]

yes we have 2 blue and 2 white and it has 2 moonlight's. The only reason we got that anemone is because we wanted to make sure we could keep one alive before we bought another expensive one and it die on us..
about 4 month's ago we bought a carpet anemone and 2 clown fish and a blue regal tang and the carpet anemone was dead within 24 hours the clown's lived about 4 day's and the blue regal tang lived 2 week's all the fish were baby's. The reason everything died was because we was using regular tap water and adding salt. We don't do that anymore..lol...needless to say our phosphate was way way up.
But that is the only reason I bought that kind of anemone it was the cheapest one to test on. But I will wait on anymore anemone's untill we get the bigger tank and have it established.
Thanks for all the advice if you have anymore I'm willing to take it..lol

 

[cathy joe]

oh yea I forgot. we feed the anemone a couple of pieces of krill once a day is that enough?

 

[ophiura]

IMO, success with a condylactus anemone has no bearing on future success with things like carpets. Condylactus are quite tough, and not too picky about light, etc. But I would also say that it is unlikely that mere tapwater and phosphates killed the fish so rapidly, so you may want to look into QTing fish when you first get them, as well as acclimation. Many people still use tap water, probably have high phosphates (leading to algae issues) but not causing immediate death to fish.

 

[cathy joe]

Well I was thinking about using our 30g as a Qting tank after we get the 75g. Do we need to keep it up and running as it is now?

 

[ophiura]

Well, they tend to be stripped down - substrate removed, most rock removed. Many people will just stick with PVC pipes of assorted sizes because the meds used will fry the LR...but it is good to have for fish to feel a bit more secure. But filtration, etc, needs to be maintained (though may be hang on the back or something). You don't want to have to set it up often because you don't want the QT to cycle while you have fish in there trying to be low stress.