Bulb Changes??

[bjs02ss]

Hey guys I bought a used tank and was thinking about changing the bulbs because I really dont know how old they are.

The tank has 2 power compact light fixtures on the top of it, a coral-life 4x65w and a 4x36w.

The 4x65w fixture has a different bulbs in it:
current dual daylight 65w
coral-life actinic 65w
coral-life 10000k 65 w
current dual actinic 65w

Should they be mixed like that?

The 4x36w fixture has, 4- 50/50 36w bulbs.
should I just replace these with 2- 10000k's and 2- antinic's or put 4 new 50/50's in there?

I'm kind of new to this and do not know much about corals yet. What kinds of stuff could I have with this kind of setup? ~400w total light

I have a 72G bowfront with a 10G sump.

Any suggestions/comments?

Sorry for the long post

Thanks guys,
Brandon

[bjs02ss]

bump

[NYIntensity]

Change them, keep the old ones. When your new ones hit life expectancy, swap them out until you buy new ones. As far as the mix, I don't know. I know the 10k and actinic mix is common, but the dual daylight is something I haven't seen. I'd probably put mix actinics and 10k's in the 36, and purely 10k's in the 48".

[DrBegalke]

The dual daylight bulbs are 6700K and 10000K mixed. I only use 6700 K bulbs in my fuge, as they are a bit too yellow for my taste.

Dual actinic bulbs are 420nm (more purple) and 460nm (blueish) mixed.

Since you have two separate fixtures, what I would do is something like this:

4x36w : all actinics, I perfer 420nm but you could go dual actinic.

4x50w: all daylight (10k) or one 10k and one 50/50.


This way you can have them on separate timers. Turn the actinic on a couple of hours before the daylight fixture, and off a couple of hours after. Plus, a lot of corals look quite different under pure actinic lighting.

As far as types of corals under PC lighting: mushrooms, zoanthids, xenia, most LPS, etc. Can not keep SPS, clams.

[DrBegalke]

[Aquarist007]

Originally posted by DrBegalke

thanks a good graphic representation DrB--where did you get it from?