Yikes! I guess I better raise mine up. I've been thinking they are much too close at 6" lol

18" from the bulb, not the glass of the fixture. 15" from the actual fixture.
Do you have a heat problem at 6"?

Rarely, maybe once or twice a year will my APEX shut the lights down because the tank gets to warm. It has to be above 27/28c outside for a few consecutive days before the basement starts to warm up to the level that the lights push the tank over the edge.

I was more concerned with bleaching and such.. I'm running 2 IC 10k's and 1 IC 14k

I don't have much for SPS in this tank, mostly LPS and softies. Several of the fish like to sample SPS polyps so I moved them to the 90g. The SPS did do well under these lights though. I read somewhere that 12" is a good rule of thumb for 400W halides over a 24" tank, depending of course on the bulb and the corals.

I have a 30" deep tank, with the halides at 6" above the water surface I can grow SPS on the sand, they actually do better down there. If I were to raise the lighting about 12" I should be able to grow SPS effectively down to about 15" below the water surface or right about where the tops of my lower piles of rock work sits, which gives me the bottom half of the rock work for lower light coral.

Thoughts? I guess it doesn't hurt to try it out.

Yeah, I think if you were to raise them up some you would have good intensity for SPS from the middle of the tank up and could keep lower-light corals on the bottom.

I hope you know that if it doesn't go well I'll be looking for a scape goat....

It'll be ok; besides I live a long way away. hehe.

Been a pretty busy summer this year and I just realized tonight that I haven't done any water testing for 9 weeks! :eek:

The results?



............drum roll please.............














(225g) Ca: 420 Alk: 9dKH Mg: 1330
(90g) Ca: 425 Alk: 8dKH Mg: 1320

Damn near perfect numbers! Sometimes I really love this hobby :biggrin: On the other hand if it's so damn easy why aren't I having to prune the corals every day?

Yeah I was just thinking tonight while I was staring at some pieces with poor PE (never happens) that I should check params. Been a month or more for me...