My tank has finally undergone its first major upgrade. I was determined to keep my tank with the stock light right from the start but lately have been entertaining the idea of possibly upgrading the light. Aesthetics aside, I also wanted to see if my corals can thrive even better and grow as oppose to simply surviving which it has successfully done with the stock lamp.
I decided to go with a Current Dual Satellite fixture ($75 at Big Al’s Online), which upgrades my light from 9-watts to 36-watts. The hood comes with dual daylight tubes (10,000k and 6,700k), dual actinic tubes (420nm and 460nm) and an LED lunar light, which altogether provides a complete 24-hour light cycle.
Package shot:
Right out of the box.
Testing the dual daylights.
Testing the dual actinics.
Daylights and actinics on.
Testing the lunar LED.
Installing mounting brackets.
The light fixture has three separate plugs for each light making it possible to plug into switch timers. So I decided to get a Digital Power Center ($35 at Petsmart) to automate my lighting.
To my disappointment, the power strip only comes with two daytime outlets and two nighttime outlets that can’t be both on at the same time. I wanted to be able to switch the actinics on before the daylight fixtures in the morning to simulate a dawn effect, and have it turn off last at night to simulate a dusk effect. I also couldn’t set the lunar light individually to come on at night so I had it plugged into my old timer switch on a different power strip.
I programmed the timer and tested it. But because I installed it at night, I wasn’t able to run the lights on as my photoperiod schedule is from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. This was on Monday. On Tuesday I didn’t make it home until past ten so I only caught the tank with the lunar light on. It wasn’t until Wednesday that I was able to come home on time only to find all the lights off! The Digital Power Center had apparently failed! I checked all the settings and everything was right but somehow it did not turn on like it was suppose to.
So I made a mad dash to Petsmart to return it and pick up a different power strip. I got the Aqualight Power Center ($45) and while it has analog controls, it also comes with better features.
It has specific outlets for actinics, daylights and lunar lights. It has two separate timers with 15-minute intervals so it could also be used as a wave-maker. The actinic and lunar outlets are set to the same timer so when the actinics are on, the lunar lights are off and vice versa.
The daylight outlets are set to its own timer independent from the other two.
I ran a late photoperiod from around 7 p.m. until midnight to make up for the total darkness in the past couple of days. As for the new lights, the results are incredible. I had no idea my tank could look this good.
Top-down shot:
Isometric shot:
Underside shot:
Back shot showing all three wires:
Actinics only:
The new lights not only brought out better coloring in my corals but they also promoted full polyp extension in all the corals. In short, the corals look much happier.
View from the left:
View from the right:
Close-up of the button polyps:
Close-up shot of the daisy polyps:
Zoanthid garden. The small group of daisy polyps on the left broke off from the main colony while I was trying to rearrange the rock.
Green star polyps now with full polyp extension.
The night scene is markedly different with the lunar light on.
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