Upgrading lighting system
 

I decided to upgrade my current 48" Coralife AquaPro 150W system to the 72" AquaPro 250W system. Can anyone give me any sugestions on how to acclimate my system to handle the additional 642 watts without bleaching my corals?

Currently my MH lights are on an 8 hour cycle.

I would start with a 5 hour or less cycle and go up from there.

How long before increasing the duration? few days, week?

Also, maybe have the lights up higher for the first few days & gradually lower it.

Other things that you can do is to put the light higher and slowly lower over the course of 3-4 weeks. You can also buy several sheets of window screening and put 7 or 8 layers over the top of your tank and every week take off one layer. Simply shortening the lighting schedule may not be enough given the extra intensity of the light - it will definately help but may not be enough. You may have to move your corals lower in your tank and slowly bring them up again over a 3-4 week period and at the same time increase the time the lights are on.

I would add an hour every 2 or 3 days, just watch to make sure the corals are not unhappy. When I switched from 265 watts pc to 500 watts mh my LPS corals would let me know they had enough light by shrinking up.

How much higher should I raise the lights? a few inches more?

You could also put 1 or 2 sheets of egg crate on top to filter the light.

Doug

Have you already purchased the unit? The 250 version has a lot of ballast problems.

Yes its on it way to me... What kind of problems?

Mostly malfunctioning problems. I've had to replace five ballast in the last year with one guy having to replace the same ballast twice. The latest ballast started making weird noises. That said, I've probably sold 20-25 of these units already, so the actual number of problems isn't extraordinarily bad, just nowhere near as good as I expect from a finished product.

I ended up sending one of the original 150W HQI bulbs that came with my 48" 150W Aqualight Pro unit as it was buzzing quite loud. I guess there is always a chance of receiving a lemmon product. I tried searching the net for any discussions about problems with 'any' of the Aqualight products - couldnt find any... Oh well, I feel better, I was thinking it would of been a more serious problem more frequently.

Heh, I've never had a problem with the 150 HQI bulbs or ballast though. Personally, I wish they'd just sell the combo units with no components (bulbs and ballast).