Mushroom lighting

I have a 20" deep tank with a hanging luminaire, i have 2x39 watt actinics & 4xwhite 39watts on around 10 hours a day, is this too much or to less for my watermelon mushrooms, i also have a piece of perspex that slides across the luminaire to protect the bulbs its about 3 mm thick can i expect to lose some light because of this?

 

mushrooms do well under most lighting conditions!

 

From my exp. they like low to med lighting. I have have mine at the bottom(sand) and I have (2) 250w MH, tank is 24" deep and they look good. Just my 2 cents. Luna

 

Cheers, i put the actinics\blues on at 12.00 noon then a hourb after i turn on the whites, their on till 9.00pm then go off and the actinics/bluesstay on for another hour till 10.00pm,

blues on for 10 hours, 78watts
whites on for 8 hours, 156watts

Does this sound good or would you recommend them on longer or shorter hours???

 

Im no lighting expert but..... when i had my t5's i just had the blue and whites on at the same time.
I dont now tho as i have MH and T5 but when it was just T5 yep had them on at the same time!

I thought you bought a unit with 8 bulbs?? are you only using 6 of them?

 

yes m8 only using 6 at the moment, all i have is a mushroom coral & few fish and inverts and was thinking this was more then enough for now, would you not agree?

 

I would agree - 4 is prob enough hell even 2 - thats all i used when i had t5's and my mushrooms did great!

but be careful you dont get salt creep in the ballasts of the 2 not being used, this is what caused my t5 unit to totally break and consistantly blow fuses!

 

its ok my luminaire bulbs is covered with a piece of 3mm perspex that slides in tight nothing can get into the bulbs/ballasts,

 

i have 4 54watt t's over my 55gallon tank and i've been raising them higher cause its to much light for most of my mushrooms

 

Ziggy how deep is your tank m8? and how do you know the lighting is to much for your mushrooms i have 240watt shining on mine but i'm a newbie to corals so i don't know what to look...