Moving from PC light to MH with vho actinics

[siskiou]

How would you go about this?

 

I finally set up my cube and am going to move a few things into it slowly.

 

How should I set up my lighting schedule?

Some softies and LPS have been only under a 24" actinic vho bulb for a few weeks (before they were under 130w pc light, but that went out recently).

 

Then there are some SPS coming from a 10G tank with 96w of pc lighting.

 

I was thinking of just starting with an hour or so of MH for the first week and then adding more in half hour steps.

Or is that too little?

 

Or what about starting with 4hrs MH, but having window screens over the tank, and removing them slowly, one by one?

[Michael7979]

I like to just add hours to the Mhs without the use of screening.

 

I would start with 1 hour and then add 1/2 hour about every couple of days until you reach 4 hours. Then I would wait a week and see how the corals have adjusted. Use your best judgement here and make sure they are adjusting well. Might need to stop somewhere in this period and give it more days before adding the next increment.

 

Then after you are sure they are adjusted to the light. I would start to add 1 hour to the photoperiod every week until you reach the desired time length. Again if things appear to look funny slow down the changes, (ie. maybe wait 2 weeks between adding more time)

 

HTH

[CCR]

What is depth of tank? What Wattage and temp?

[siskiou]

Depth is 24".

The light is a 250w HQI DE 12k bulb.