Hours of Light...SPS Color

aastretch64

New member
I know that nitrates and phosphates play a roll in sps color, but with 2 - 250watt Pheonix 14k's, will running them longer then 10 hours also color up the sps?

At what point do nitrates and phosphates (ppm) effect coral color?

What else effects coral color?

Alex
 
dark/drab acros usually have too much zoaxanthellae

longer photoperiod could keep some of those zoox faded and let the colors out

if not a lot of zoox and colors are bad due to poor nutrition... long photoperiod can bleach and starve the coral

all life forms need N and P... just not no3 and po4... it is a delicate balance that most stony keepers constantly battle

within the last few years... there have been tank keepers that run shorter photoperiods... like 4-6 hrs. i think this is all a function of how much "cleaner" (in fact, sometimes too clean IMO) we keep our systems than we used to (stronger skimmers, GFO, etc, etc)
 
you have to read up on the husbandry on each coral you purchase and them place them in the tank according to their light preference
I agree extending the photoperiod doesn't help

The other key to sps is lots and lots of flow--40 times the volume of your tank per hour or even lots more
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11665298#post11665298 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kip
dark/drab acros usually have too much zoaxanthellae

longer photoperiod could keep some of those zoox faded and let the colors out

if not a lot of zoox and colors are bad due to poor nutrition... long photoperiod can bleach and starve the coral

all life forms need N and P... just not no3 and po4... it is a delicate balance that most stony keepers constantly battle

within the last few years... there have been tank keepers that run shorter photoperiods... like 4-6 hrs. i think this is all a function of how much "cleaner" (in fact, sometimes too clean IMO) we keep our systems than we used to (stronger skimmers, GFO, etc, etc)

Yeah what he said.

There are many many discussions on all the variables mentioned in Kips post. To make things even more confusing and difficult to find a balance, not all SPS will respond the same. Some acros will look great in a starved short pp tank while other will look terrible and even die, as the opposite. Finding the proper nutrient level, photoperiod, and coral placement creates the constant tweaking that makes keeping SPS more difficult and more rewarding when done right.
 
Most of the issue I have is will browning polyps. I've got some great colorful coralites. Do polyps react the same way the coralited do?

Alex
 
most of the " tank of the month" i see run 10-12 hours a day, and i would totally do that instant of 7 hours a day if i can afford the bill. Also if i am not too lazy to clean the algae...
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11666839#post11666839 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by x2uranium
On the equator does the sun not shine 12 hours per day?

Conversely, do all corals grow within ~2' of the surface? Of course not, some corals can be found in as much as 200' of water or more. Obviously, these don't require 12 hours of high intensity light. How about a coral that occurs naturally at 60'? 20'? There's a lot more to the lighting question that replicating surface conditions at the equator. Also, remember that even though the day is 12 hours, peak irradiance is only a few hours around midday, very different from blazing 400w halides from sunup to sundown.

Personally, my lighting is spread across a 12hr photoperiod. T5 blue+ comes on first. An hour later, the T5 aquablues come on. That's my lighting combo for most of the day. I run a relatively short MH period, around 4 hours, to simulate midday sun. This is in an SPS dominated tank. Some of my acros had more color when I was running a 2hr MH period, others are more colorful with 4. Everything is a tradeoff, the goal is to find a happy medium for everything you keep.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11667037#post11667037 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jeffbrig
Conversely, do all corals grow within ~2' of the surface? Of course not, some corals can be found in as much as 200' of water or more. Obviously, these don't require 12 hours of high intensity light. How about a coral that occurs naturally at 60'? 20'? There's a lot more to the lighting question that replicating surface conditions at the equator. Also, remember that even though the day is 12 hours, peak irradiance is only a few hours around midday, very different from blazing 400w halides from sunup to sundown.

Personally, my lighting is spread across a 12hr photoperiod. T5 blue+ comes on first. An hour later, the T5 aquablues come on. That's my lighting combo for most of the day. I run a relatively short MH period, around 4 hours, to simulate midday sun. This is in an SPS dominated tank. Some of my acros had more color when I was running a 2hr MH period, others are more colorful with 4. Everything is a tradeoff, the goal is to find a happy medium for everything you keep.

This is an old article from Richard Harker, but data is still valid:

"Anyone who has watched a sunrise knows that sunlight gradually increases as the sun rises above the horizon until it reaches its brightest point, when the sun is directly overhead, and then gradually declines as the sun sets. While the process is obvious, the intensities may surprise most people.
From total darkness, it only takes a few minutes for light to reach levels normally found in a reef tank. Measuring light over a shallow reef off Sulawesi, Indonesia, I found that intensity reached 200 microEinsteins per square meter per second (ìE/m2/sec) by 6:30 a.m. This is a light intensity level
that exceeds that found on many reef tanks. By 8:00 a.m. light intensity exceeded the intensity found over a tank lighted by 400-watt metal halide bulbs. This raises the question of whether slowly “cycling” lights on gradually is of any value.

On the natural reef, light exceeds that of a typical reef tank in less than an hour. If a hobbyist wants to re-create sunrise on a natural reef, a cycling time well less than an hour would be more realistic than the more typical several hour cycling."
 
That sounds like a great article, and one I have not read. Still, there is a difference between what happens at the surface on a shallow reef, and what happens deeper. With the sun at a low angle of incidence, light may travel 60' diagonally to reach a 20' bottom. That means you get 60' worth of light attenuation. As the sun climbs in the sky, you get better light penetration at depth. Since our tank lighting is always directly overhead, it doesn't have this variable.
 
True Jeffbrig,

Also our overhead lighting minimizes shading which is more prevelant in nature as the sun is at varying low angles of incidence twice a day.

James
 
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