Question about lighting, moving corals to a new tank, etc.

[Bruce Spiegelman]

I just picked up an Innovative Marine SR120 and am in the process of getting it up and running. I have a couple questions about lighting.

First, the previous owner had it set-up as a FOWLR and had an inexpensive 72" Beamworks LED strip on it. It's got a couple hundred 1 watt blue and white LEDs on it and has a decent timer on it. I realize this is not a light to be used on a mixed reef tank, but can it be used for "after-hours" viewing without harm. I am a writer and work from home so I tend to leave my tank lights on too long and have some algae problems because of it. Is it workable and reasonable to run my normal lighting (Kessils) for a normal period (8 hours ish) and then use this weal strip to enjoy the tank while I'm working? Will a bunch of one watt LEDs still cause an algae issue if run longer? What about just the blue?

Second, I currently have two Kessil 350's and I know I will need one to two more. So this is an informal poll. Can I go with just one more 350 or 360 or do I need two more or a total of four? Mixed reef. Not much SPS though.

As to moving corals -- most are attached to large rocks. Should I take them off and re-dip corals before putting them in the new tank? Acclimate whole rocks without treating?

 

[Enderturtle]

1) I have two kessils over my 40 breeder. I want to say their effective footprint of the kessil350/360 is about 20-inch by 20-inch

Anything beyond 22-inch is gonna get shadowed. My tank is 36-inches long so there's overlapping light in the middle, where i keep my sps. I don't know anything about programming/developing LED light fixtures so I can't say anything about that subject. Reef tanks should have a dark period in my opinion.

2) What are the dimensions of this tank? Need that to answer question #2

3) Moving corals to your tank. Yes yes yes dip those corals. I personally would pry them off and dip individually and either kill the rock with bleach or muriatic acid or give it to someone else. I personally treat liverock the same way I treat corals. It's got holes and crevices for pest species to live in. Watch out if you dip the rocks though, live rocks SOAK a lot of stuff. And you do not want residual dip to end up in your tank.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Yeah that Beamworks LED is sold by the infamous Aquatraders, king of the cheaply made garbage...

If you want kessils and the fixture for later though you might have issues since the beamworks basically fits over the tank I believe, and would block your kessils. That said why not adjust the lighting schedule to your work schedule so you can actually watch it when you're working, nothing says you need lights to come on in the morning and go off in the evening, unless of course you just work all sorts of odd hours. In which case I might just setup the kessils for a very dim setting when you're working and random times, it'll let you see the tank without having so much light to cause algae issues (which FYI are also usually caused by nutrients first and foremost).

For a 72" tank you're going to want more than 3 kessils probably... I say probably because I'm the odd ball of the reefing group that doesn't think a tank needs uniform illumination and it's ok to have a real bright spot for high light corals, and the rest be somewhat dim You should be good front to back because the IM SR series does have that built in sump compartment along the entire back so your 24" tank isn't really 24" of viewable tank.

As to the moving corals, if they're your corals,and there are no issues with them, no pests, I wouldn't stress them so much with breaking them off and dipping them... but if they came from other tanks assume everything is infected and deal with it as such.