Gary Majchrzak
Team RC
different water flow will cause these differences.
Coral Growth Manipulation
- Thread starter derek4real
- Start date
With so many things that effect growth only one thing is for certain, not all corals will like the same tank. I have this example for you, A friend had his tank running for several years and softies, like zoo's, grew like mad while lps, like candy cane grew OK but not great and sps just grew. Now he has completely redone his tank. He is very care-full not to overfeed and has excellent water flow and bio-filtration and an over sized skimmer. Now his sps grow at an alarming rate while the zoos grow very slowly. SDo there may well be a balance to get good growth from all, I do not know if it can be done in one tank. I will say this, if it is sps then keep perfect water-high flow and less than 10,000k lights for a good start on growth. Best of luck, Shaun
If there was one perfect way of doing things, we would all be doing the exact same thing. Everyone has to find out what works best for them. Time and mistakes works better that any book. Research will hopefully limit the mistakes. Different environments will create different results.
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Tang Salad
Algae skeptic
It's hard to believe, but there are 20K bulbs with more PAR than some 6500K bulbs... meaning they'll grow corals faster.
No. PAR is just a reading of how much light energy is reaching a specific spot in the tank. Spectrum, which is what the "K" is referring to, is a whole different ballgame. The sunlight on the earth's surface ranges from 5k-6.5k. If you run full 6.5k bulbs over your tank, you will likely have crazy growth. However, your tank will look yellow and your corals will probably all appear brown. The 10-20k spectrum is just to make the color's "pop".
Tang Salad
Algae skeptic
PAR is not a measure of how much light energy is reaching a specific spot. It's a measure of how much Photosynthetically Active Radiation is reaching that point. Thus the acronym, PAR.
Don't make the assumption that all light is equally usable for photosynthesis (coral growth). A lot of the red spectrum, where much of a 6500K bulb's light resides, is unusable for photosynthesis.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/5/aafeature
zx6r
New member
http://reefcentral.com/forums/subscription.php?do=addsubscription&t=1904402
I've been looking for info on this topic for a while now, and I wish there was a good 'cheatsheet' to give you basic ideas. However, as with most things, you can only account for so many variables.
I'd love to have a space in the garage to set up a few 'identical' tanks with pieces of the same frag and watch how the change in flow, lighting element, or something else affects the growth right next to each other.
PurdueMAN_08
Critter Kreeper
That is a superb idea. If somebody had the time and resources this could shed some good light on the subject.
fcmatt
Member
sure it is usable. i think where you misread the article is when it is pure
red light it tends to inhibit.. not be unusable.
plus a 6500K bulb is hardly all red. here is a spectrum chart of GE 6500K
bulb. it is a good mixture.
just throwing this out there as i just skimmed the article in curiosity as how
could a GE 6500K bulb be known for good growth otherwise?
What do you think radiation is?
PAR is measured as moles of photons (or Einsteins if you prefer) per square meter per second between 400-700nm of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Hookup
New member
Like a driver passing a car wreck, I'm interested in this thread... Color, lights and growth are something I cannot stop reading about...
Short facts, as I know them, which is to say as I recall from my readings, we do not know enough to make any solid statements yet, photosynthesis in some few studied zoox have shown that 650nm and 420nm wavelengths are effective above others. Also, a photon traveling at 420nm has less effect on the ETC than those at 650nm, or more simply red works better on a per photon/volume basis than blue.
One correction, the sun has a pretty broad spectrum and I believe it is a bit more than the afore stated 5k to 6.5k spectrum... Like a lot more... Corals have the entire set in the ocean, in our tanks they get a distant second from our lights...
Short facts, as I know them, which is to say as I recall from my readings, we do not know enough to make any solid statements yet, photosynthesis in some few studied zoox have shown that 650nm and 420nm wavelengths are effective above others. Also, a photon traveling at 420nm has less effect on the ETC than those at 650nm, or more simply red works better on a per photon/volume basis than blue.
One correction, the sun has a pretty broad spectrum and I believe it is a bit more than the afore stated 5k to 6.5k spectrum... Like a lot more... Corals have the entire set in the ocean, in our tanks they get a distant second from our lights...
I'll say one thing, whoever came up w/the name of that book should have to buy 1000 copies since I doubt they'll sell many more.
