Need advice for sps dominant tank

[michael giordano]

I miss metal halides for the growth aspect, nothing grows corals faster. That being said I live in south Florida and the heat produced is too much I don’t want to run a chiller. So now I run and aquatic life fixture with two XR15 g4 pros. I like this combo and I get good growth and color. Now I can run my tank all 9 months out of the year with no heater and tank stays at 79 degrees.

 

[An ngo]

I'm a newbie who started my tank about 9 months ago. I've had all the usual issues except one: issues or concerns about lighting. I use a the ATI led powermodule. 4x80watt t5, 4 x 75 watt led clusters. I programmed it on the day I got it (mostly using the default settings), got the height right, haven't touched it since. All my SPS are basing out and growing up and full of colour.

There are many factors to successfully keeping SPS and lighting is just one. Having read so many stories about problems with bleaching, burning, browning and death and people having to muck around with their LEDs, to me, T5 is a great beginners choice because you can switch them on and they will work. Guaranteed. .

Supplemental LED light is nice and adds some power and pop. But I leave that at about 60% power max. Basically that means I can adjust the colour and spectrum to what is pleasing to my eyes and know that it isn't going to cause any detrimental effects.

Hi thanks for your comment, I’m running kessil sup t5 for my 20 gal and my rose bulb anemone pretty happy. I used to try sps on my tank, but it started stn after 2 months grow and crash my tank for some reason. I haven’t have any sps for now but 2 torch survive after that crash and still grow crazy under my light. Kessil is perfect choice for beginners, but I need to try something else on dufferent tank. Here is my tank under kessi sup t5

 

[An ngo]

This is an older pic, the cyano is gone and I have several acros on racks getting ready to go on the rocks... but it's the most recent FTS I have with all the lights on.

This is a 36x24x24" 90g SCA cube. Almost the same as your tank. I'm having good success with 3 Kessil A160WE and a 36" Aquatic Life hybrid fixture with 4 ATI True Actinic bulbs. The Kessils run at 100% for 12 hours. The first 6ish hours are at 50% color with the T5, the second 6ish hours are at 0% color.

If I had the money, there would be 3 brand new A360Xs up there... which is what I would suggest you do.

Wow your tank look cool. Kessil pretty is to use and T5 is also a great combo for sps to pop its color. I have heared a new kessil and a lot of good review on those. Seem like a lot of choices fr me on lighting section

 

[An ngo]

Yes it's old school believe or not metal halide making a come back seeing more n more people going back and doing all kinds of combos yes they do generate alot of heat but even 10" off the water 3 250w over my 125 my chiller in the summer kicks on no more than a hour in a 4 hour burn . Now that is colder chiller never kicks on . When I had t5 with led never had the growth I do now nothing even close . But like I said what works for me might not work for everyone. If you have a smaller tank or no deep can get away from 250 goto 175 or 150 w.

Lol, Minnesota pretty cold so I may need the heat for my basement as well lol