zeeter

75 Gallon tank - 18" high. This is my light: http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/247299/product.web

* (3) 48 in. T5HO 54W Actinic/Blue Lamps
* (3) 48 in. T5HO 54W 10,000K
* (4) 1W Lunar LEDs

Is this too much light for my tank? I have been experiencing coral bleaching lately. Some likely culprits are too many fish in the tank, possibly too much phosphate and nitrate, and then there's the light.

When the bleaching first started I cut down my lighting from 10 hours of daylight per day to 8, and now to six. Meanwhile, my actinics run for 12.5 hours. When we talk about how long to leave lights on are we talking the daylight lights or both the daylight and actinics?

I plan on moving a couple of my fish out today - maybe that will help.

aquarist48

Hello Zeeter,

Hopefully some of our salt tank keepers will help you out today.

Ken

MizRamzi

Lot of Coming at you

How high up are the corals?
How long have you had them in your tank?
What sort of lighting were they under before you bought them? (bleaching can happen from either not enough or to much light)
What type of corals are we talking about?
I'm thinking you might not have enough lighting. The total of your daylights being only 54w per bulb, is this right?

zeeter

It's a six bulb fixture at 54w each. I have all types of corals. They do well for a week or so and then start to die off. They are at various depths within the tank.

I just began dosing a phosphate remover and have dramatically cut down on the amount of food that I'm feeding them. I may be overstocked. I am definitely not under-lit. Especially for leather corals, frogspawn and ltp.

MizRamzi

Yup plenty of light! Have you tested all parameters? I would stop dosing for phosphates, it may be burning them. I use Purigen as a phos remover. Remember if your dosing for 75g's and your total water volume is only 65 because of LR and sand your over dosing. Are you using RO/DI water? If so then there's no need to dose for phosphates. Check all parameter and come back with the readings.

zeeter

I've been testing all of my parameters and everything seems fine. I'll check again when I get home tonight. Yes, I am using an RO/DI unit for all of my water. As for the testing, my nitrates have been at around 25 and I forget what the phos was at, but it was higher than it should have been. The nitrates is why I've cut down on feedings. Sometimes I go overboard - especially on the weekends. Hopefully that will help.

I just started the neozeo system and I'm running that through a poly reactor. Though this means a refugium is unnecessary, I'm thinking of running one anyway and putting my poly reactor return in there. Last time I tried this I had attempted to use my skimmer return to flow into my refugium, but the water was too much and it started all kinds of plumbing problems.