SPS and Lighting Question

[willow grove]

I currently have a 120 gallon reef tank (48x24x24) and have been using a Coralife Aqualight Pro for the lighting. It has 2 250 watt Metal Halides and 2 96watt Power Compacts - for a total of 696 watts. The metal Halide bulbs are XM 15000k. I have mostly SPS coral (various Acropora) with a few LPS. I have been placing my acropora corals on upper third portion of my tank - as close to the light source as I can put them - and they have been doing very well (lots of growth and color). My problem is that I am running out of room at the top, but would still like to add more Acros to my tank. With the light I am using, can I get away with placing acroporas in the middle and bottom of my tank? I would just experiment on my own with this, but all of my corals have grown into eachother and my rock, making them very difficult to move. Does anyone out there have experience with this lighting and acropora coral?

 

[stanlalee]

other than the fact XM 15k have terrible PAR you could easily put acro's midway down the tank and most will do fine below the middle ( I dont think I'd put acro's at the bottom but you could put most montipora and less light demanding sps down there. not even that they wouldn't do fine, its just more natural for acro to be up high and LPS down low). even though I think they'd do fine mid way down as is I'd definately upgrade bulbs, particularly with the power compact supplements. I'd go with sunpaq 420/460nm pc bulbs which are much bluer than standard 420nm actinics and use 10-14k bulbs with some balls like XM 10k, Ushio 14k or Aqualine AB 13k. you'll get much better growth/PAR with those.

 

[gatorwpb]

Originally Posted by Stanlalee
http:///forum/post/2798448
other than the fact XM 15k have terrible PAR you could easily put acro's midway down the tank and most will do fine below the middle ( I dont think I'd put acro's at the bottom but you could put most montipora and less light demanding sps down there. not even that they wouldn't do fine, its just more natural for acro to be up high and LPS down low). even though I think they'd do fine mid way down as is I'd definately upgrade bulbs, particularly with the power compact supplements. I'd go with sunpaq 420/460nm pc bulbs which are much bluer than standard 420nm actinics and use 10-14k bulbs with some balls like XM 10k, Ushio 14k or Aqualine AB 13k. you'll get much better growth/PAR with those.
agreed on the XMs. I responded to your SPS thread post. Phoenix bulbs are great too. I think the Aqualines are actually 10k but they say they have 13k spectrum.