Lps And Sps Coral

[sorgan]

I am planning to do a full light upgrade on my tank at some point I am ditching all my T5's ( 2 x 24w and a blue tube) and am going to replace with 4-5 aquaray 500 strips (one blue, 4 white)

what I was wondering is will lps be happy with that amount of light or should I try to fit more runs in? I really want to go the LED route over tubes or MH.

So here is theain question, to anyone keeping hard corals, how much light have you got?
I understand I will need high cal and mag (my salt has high levels apparantly) and I know sps need high flow and light aswell as pristine water.

It's not going to be for a while and I intend to start with lps first, anyone know of a good started lps?

Cheers guys

 

[ben1987]

ive had aquarays and they arent strong enough to keep many SPS corals, maybe a few basic montis and brown acros.
Ive got halides now and growth is much faster.

LPS on the other hand do better under T5's or LED's compared to halides in my experience.

 

[sorgan]

So how many lights should I have in my tank it's 82cm x 50cm x 60cm and I have 2 24w T5, a marine blue tube that I belive is a 15w t8 bit I'm not sure and I have added a marine White aquaray 500 single strip. I have run out of room for lights hence the plans for a custom hood.

 

[ben1987]

depends on what you deffinatly want to keep? If you would settle for softies and LPS then you dont need much more. Just SPS need daft amounds of light

 

[sorgan]

I am not to worried about sps, would I need to add more light for lps? My softies seem quite happy ATM. Do LPS need much more light then softs or do they get most of there energy from food?

 

[ben1987]

Prob be ok tbh nder
2 T5's
1 T8
and one aquaray

is it 50cm tall or 60?

 

[sorgan]

60cm deep, lps want to be near the top I guess? I have seen they like to be on sand, is that true?

 

[ben1987]

Yeah LPS tend to prefer to be lower down, and some on the sand, most like flow flow areas too.

Because the tank is two feet deep, it means light penetration will be a bit less on the bottom. Softies will be fine for sure. If i was you id probably get rid of the T8 and try squeeze in two more T5's