Comments for this article (12)

• Mastertechrepair says:

  12.23.2011 at 11:31 am

  thats sumthing comon now how long should a bulb last or how do u tell wen its time for a change ??
• Mark H. says:

  12.23.2011 at 12:02 pm

  Great tip Mark, how long of a light cycle would you recomend for a LPS and Softy tank?
• Craig says:

  12.23.2011 at 12:41 pm

  That does not make total sense to me. I have 6 T5 bulbs and my local fish store says to rotate changing 3 out at a time. Doing that i still seem to shock the corals a bit so i have switched to rotating in a new bulb every month or so. It seems to have no stress on the corals and still allows me to have all the bulbs changed out every 6mths or so. Plus the fall off between changes becomes less of an issue. So… please tell me what im missing here and why.
• Fred says:

  12.23.2011 at 3:30 pm

  I have to agree with you Craig, back before I made the switch to LED I had an 8 bulb tek light, I would switch 2 bulbs every 3 months, that way there all bulbs would get switched within 12 months and I would have a more even light distribution. If I was to wait say 9 months and switch all bulbs at the same time, there would be a huge difference in light output all in ode day and at the end of the life cycle of the bulbs the light output would be rather week
• Mad Hatter Reef says:

  12.23.2011 at 3:32 pm

  Great Tip Mark. Happy Holidays!
• Dave says:

  12.23.2011 at 7:52 pm

  Unfortunately Craig, rotating the bulbs does not change the fact that the spectrum has diminished. As I noticed this week the bulb color will change greatly as the bulb ages. This can almost always show in the way corals open or even algae growth changes. I had two issues where the actinic bulbs purchased from two different sources show a completed different output. Luckly my tank holds 8 t5 bulbs and I always buy them 4 at a time. You also get better pricing when you find sellers that offer bulk rates.
  The change in my tank from the old to new bulbs is night and day.
  Dee from BRooklyn
• Dave says:

  12.23.2011 at 8:00 pm

  Mark, Here’s a question. My tank is over 8 years old. As rock ages the algae grown gets pretty profound as a blue green color. I have been perfectly happy with this as my fish and corals show no stress and grow as happy as clams. I do notice fellow reefers struggling with dozens of chemicals just to obtain the god all mighty purple coraline color. Was there some rule that all the coraline growth in the world has to be purple? 🙂 I have heard of so many people killing tanks by adding chemical bombs and toxic cocktails that it makes me wonder how new tank keepers wade through all the new fangled additives on the market in order to get quick results. I believe in good old fashioned water changes and test kits. What do you think. As long as the tank is clean and water parameters are good Fish are Happy.
• Byron says:

  12.24.2011 at 6:37 pm

  Just like guitar strings, when one brakes it’s better to change all of them. You don’t have to do that, but it will certainly sound better. All the more with the lights on my tank!
• Mark Callahan says:

  12.24.2011 at 10:03 pm

  Craig…if you replace all the bulbs of 1 color at a time, you probably won’t see an issue as I described in the video. However, if you replace 1 daylight bulb say out of a possible 3, then the new bulb can look remarkably different from the old ones. Therefore, in the previous example, you’d want to swap out all your daylight bulbs at once.
• devin says:

  12.27.2011 at 12:49 pm

  Another tid bit of info where some hobbyists say one thing and others say another thing. I agree with changing out ur bulbs over time and changing ur actinics 1st. You can shock ur coral from light!
• Mark Callahan says:

  12.27.2011 at 10:01 pm

  Devin et all…any change in lighting should include acclimating your corals to the new light as I discuss here
• Simon Ksiazek says:

  01.02.2012 at 1:35 am

  Hi Mark,
  I know this is kind of off topic but I figure its about lighting so I’m close.
  I know you love the Ecotech Radion LED fixture. I do to (love love love this LED) but its expensive! Are there any other equivalent choices? What about pendant style LEDs such as Kessil A150W? what are your thoughts of these? (Yes, I know they are not modular) but other than that are there any pros? they are cheaper than Radion so I thought you could get more bang for your buck. Let me know what you think. Even a Mr. Saltwater Tank epsiode would be sweet.

  Cheers!

  Simon

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