Do I need more light?

[DibsOnMcRibs]

Hi, guys!
I have a 20 gallon that has a black and white clown and a modest clean up crew. I don't plan on adding much else as I'd like to get the hang of coral before I upgrade to a fancier set up in about a year.

As of now my lighting is the 23 watt Orbit Marine LED that is on about 12 hours per day. I do weekly 25% water changes and my zoas are showing some growth after a few weeks. I plan to stick with soft/LPS corals. I currently have xenia, two zoas, frogspawn, a torch and a patch of green star polyps that I wish would fill in a bit more.

Should I add additional lighting? My friends say "more blue light" but I was hoping for a less vague answer.

 

[75mixedreef]

25% water change is rather large on that small of a system, you might want to decrease that down to half that to shock them less. I would also recommend that you are picky about what you allow into your tank. Anything brown is pretty much a week and while you might appreciate it now, in the future it could cause you headaches. I had the same situation with mushrooms.

I bring this up because; #1 your growth could be more affected by stability or a lack there of, and #2 its not so much what you have right now in your tank so much as what you want to have in the future that dictates your lighting needs. Marine Orbit is not a great name for LED. Most people prefer 3W LEDs for the proper output, yours has 96 LEDs at 23 watts. That's about .24W per LED, you don't get a whole lot of output with that, then the intensity is lower and your penetration into the water suffers.

Your torch and frogspawn need higher levels of lighting than your other corals so place them higher in the tank, you may even want to add some supplemental light, like a single or double T5. Color spectrum is not the same as light levels, more blue is a personal preference and makes little difference. When you look at upgrading to the "fancier" setup, pay attention to how your corals did now and I would suggest going with high power LEDs if you do LEDs at all. Your current fixture is not really intended for growing stony corals, it can work if the tank is shallow, but you might run into issues or you just might not see any growth.

 

[chrisfont23]

Short answer, no, but that's based on the statement of growth.

Since PAR values seem to be all the rage as far as a specific indicator of too much/too little, you might as well spend the $50 bucks or so and rent one. This will help put to rest the question you pose. However - you have growth, so in my opinion that is as good an indicator as anything. As stated by the other poster, you can always place corals around the upper portions of the tank in the meantime.

I will caution - LEDs are deceptively bright. Having LED units on both my reef and freshwater tanks required me to dial in the settings as well as the exposure - for example, as 6 hours of my T5s may equate to 3 hrs of my LEDs at maximum output.

Again - best bet is to take the guesswork out and measure.

 

[chrisfont23]

https://reefledlights.com/shop/par-meter-rental/

 

[DibsOnMcRibs]

I bring this up because; #1 your growth could be more affected by stability or a lack there of, and #2 its not so much what you have right now in your tank so much as what you want to have in the future that dictates your lighting needs. Marine Orbit is not a great name for LED. Most people prefer 3W LEDs for the proper output, yours has 96 LEDs at 23 watts. That's about .24W per LED, you don't get a whole lot of output with that, then the intensity is lower and your penetration into the water suffers.

That's helpful - I had a discus tank previously, so bigger water changes were always better. All the different lighting options are the most confusing part about switching to saltwater tanks.

https://reefledlights.com/shop/par-meter-rental/
https://reefledlights.com/shop/par-meter-rental/

That's something I'll definitely be utilizing before I switch systems. The arbitrary nature of which lighting's best confuses me.