Goodbye GHA!

[Maverick00]

Well ever since ive owned my 33 gallon aquarium ive struggled with HA here and there. Ive ran a 4x T5HO light fixture and played around with bulb colors trying to get a combo I liked as well as changing the bulbs out every 6 - 12 months (whatever i can afford at the time). Frequent water changes, blasting the live rock with a baster, growing cheato, phosban. Nothing was ever a quick or easy fix.


Almost a week ago I switched my lighting to a single 250w MH fixture and loved the color and shimmer of the ebay 20000k. Days later I noticed almost all the algae in the tank slowing disappearing! Melting off the CPR overflow, off the PVC intake, off all 4 panes of glass. The light schedule shuts off a couple hours earlier but Im convinced the lights had a much bigger influence on the HA growth than I previously thought. I cant afford to change my bulbs every 3-6 months so Ill defiantly try this out for a couple months. Corals are happier than ever as well. My only complaint is of course the heat but ill add a fan to blow over the surface when i make a more permanent stand for the fixture. Anyone have a similar experience with HA and light setups?

[daniella3d]

I have 2 tanks, one with MH and one with T5HO, and it is a striking difference how much more beautiful and happy all my corals are under MH, wereas the color and thriving is very low in under the T5HO.

I keep T5HO under my other tank because it is a nano and the heat would be hard to control, but nothing beat MH I have pink and gold paly in my MH tank that are really gorgious, bright golden yellow in the center with very saturated pink tentacles, but when ever I sell frag to people without MH the polyps always become brown. Even those with LED cannot keep the pink and gold color! I don't know what's in the MH that give them that beautiful color but they obviously because very dull and brown under any other type of light.

[Maverick00]

absolutely agree, Everything appears to glow, especially my green zoas Time to get some new frags and see what other corals look like under this light

I have thought about LED eventually but I want to run the MH train for awhile and gain some experience.