Upgrading lights. What should I do?

[CarlS]

Currently I'm running 2 175w 10k MH's and 2 30w NO Blue Actinics on my 55g tank. I'm swaping out the 30w NO's with 95w VHO's. So raising my wattage by 130. How should I go about doing the swap so I don't stress the corals out too much?

-Swap them in the middle of the day and turn them off earlier and slowly turn them off later and later till they are back to the normal off time?

-Just swap them and hope the corals aren't affected too much since it's just blue actinic?

Also if anyone happens to have a few 95w (36") Blue Actinics for sale let me know!

CarlS

 

[Doug1]

Well one theory is that the actinic being less lumen output wont matter that much, so you should be fine, altho the other theory is that the 420 nanmeter band that actinics run in is very photoreactive so its really bright to the corals tho not to the human eye.
Personally having had actinc/daylight on a timer so the actinic comes on an hour before the daylights, I have never seen a problem. Most coral shock,bleaching and general unhappiness seems to stem from increasing the output of wide spectrum day lights, ie changing from 175 MH to 250 or 400 MH or from NO light to mega VHO or PC
Run em half the normal time for a week or so then add an hour to the timer weekly, you should be good

 

[CarlS]

Groovy! Thanks for the info.

Carl

 

[G~]

i also agree with Doug. i think you should be fine just going up with the VHO's. it is such a diffused light source that it is brighter, but it is not as intense as if you were going up in wattage with MH's. with those point sources, right under the lamp there is a lot of extra light.

G~