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Old 01-19-2010, 10:02 PM
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Delphinus Delphinus is offline
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Keep the lights you have now. That sounds like a killer setup. It also opens the door for more light loving things down the road if that floats your fancy.

If you are concerned about light shock for the first week or two, here are two methods that work well for acclimating critters to higher light (well, ok, 3, but let's ignore the first one since I think it won't be an option):

1) If the lights are suspended over the tank, adjust the height upwards and slowly lower them over time.

2) Layers of eggcrate. At least one layer, or two if the need is extreme. Remove the eggcrate layers a couple days at a time.

3) (My personal favourite, done this a few times and it's worked out well). Let's say your photoperiod is from 10am to 10pm. Keep the photoperiod 10 to 10, but adjust the lights so that they're on for 15 minutes, off for 45 minutes. After 4-5 days adjust it so it's 30 minutes on, 30 minutes off. Another 4-5 days 45 minutes on, 15 minutes off, last but not least, on all the time. Takes about 2 weeks but then you're generally set after that. Plus all this time you're looking at your fish/corals/etc and will have a sense of how it's going - so you can slow it down if need be, or speed it up even if you think it's going fine.
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