My T5 55g tank....and coral lightening

hmmmm

hmmmm

Horace when you say,
We totally CAN over-do it because the sun is not out for as many hours as we run our bulbs. Many folks out there run thier bulbs at full intensity for 12 hours a day.


The reality is it makes no difference the zooanthellae reach a saturation point known as Photoinhibition, basically the corals are no longer needing light and the light may or may not effect their ability to metabolize foods. The simple fact is if your keeping your full daylights on 12hrs+ then chances are your corals are reaching that saturation point, but that's poor husbandry on your part. I am positive we cannot duplictae the intensity of the sun during full daylight in the tropics, ofcourse we can leave or lights on like morons for 24hrs, but I don't think I need to speak about that too much!

also..



my tank is visually ALOT brighter than even the 29g with the 250w 14k on it. Every time they see my tank they are amazed how bright it is....That should tell you something....


This is not any sort of scientific way of proving or disproving the brightness of T5's, Par and a lightmeter are the only things that can do that. Luckily your right in that T5's have better Par ratings then MH comparitively. I think either sanjay or someone else on here did that exact study, check it out. I remeber reading on it once.

Ceegee

How long have you had those pieces? They look kinda small. Mine faded over a period of months

Well mine have been in there for over 2 months, with outstanding rowth, and I have frags from someone upstate Ny that have not only grown but gotten brighter, one tort became bright neon yellow, from a pale green.
I am not sure, but there are many factors why corals loose coloration and bleach. I had one such RTn event with a recent Mille colony that was WC, I think sometimes wild caught and sometimes even for unknown reasons corals can bleach and rtn or dtn. I just don;t think we know nearly enough about bacteria, and parasites inthis hobby at all.


IMO opinion I think t5's are very bright and can be dangerous to corals if they are not well adjusted to this new form of lighting. I don't think if acclimated properly corals "can't handle," this new light. I think again its poor husbandry on our part, not the corals or this wicked new lighting called t5's.

cheers
David
 
My corals are not brown, they are lighter shades of their original color, and at the same time they have been growing steady for 1-2 years now. But I do agree that there are other factors, just seems like this is a common issue with T5 and SPS.
 
listening to everyone here (except ditch - that awesome bleached purple acro is the deal!) - maybe the slr's need to be re-evaluated, or husbandry needs to be toned up a little. having the single reflector, i've got a milli that's encrusted the base and put on approx, 3/8" growth in less than a month.

very satisfied with my t5's with no lightining of sps - although i am bleaching some green hairy shrooms on the sandbed...
 
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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7458341#post7458341 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DitchPlains2
Horace when you say,



The reality is it makes no difference the zooanthellae reach a saturation point known as Photoinhibition, basically the corals are no longer needing light and the light may or may not effect their ability to metabolize foods. The simple fact is if your keeping your full daylights on 12hrs+ then chances are your corals are reaching that saturation point, but that's poor husbandry on your part. I am positive we cannot duplictae the intensity of the sun during full daylight in the tropics, ofcourse we can leave or lights on like morons for 24hrs, but I don't think I need to speak about that too much!

also..

This is not any sort of scientific way of proving or disproving the brightness of T5's, Par and a lightmeter are the only things that can do that. Luckily your right in that T5's have better Par ratings then MH comparitively. I think either sanjay or someone else on here did that exact study, check it out. I remeber reading on it once.

I totally agree with you about the whole photoinhibition thing....my point is that there are many folks out there that think that because our lights arent quite as bright as the sun is at noon in the tropics, that we dont ever have to worry about over-doing the lighting, when in fact we are blasting the corals with slightly less intensity, but for much longer periods of time. Because of that, we are hitting that photoinhibition and then some anyway. I think this almost certainly causes our corals to lighten up in color....Granted, this is just my humble opinion from looking at my tank and others with lightening coral problems.

I simply think we are running our T5s too close to the water, and too long in MANY situations.


I also agree my visual brightness compare is not scientific in anyway, but in reality, I dont need to see a meter to tell me which tank is brighter. The fact is that my tank is SOOO much brighter than my friends tanks that its no contest as to which one would win. But I agree, it would be nice to have some numbers to look at. On the other hand I have already seen Grim's numbers and they just confirm what I am seeing anyway :P.
 
Well if people have good results with SPS and no SLR's then thats another clue that those with good equipment are blasting their corals.

Although you are talking about a milli which is an easier acro.
 
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I don't agree with it. According to my understanding, photoinhibition is intensity related and not time related. If the intensity of the light fixture does not reach the point of photoinhibition, photoinhibition will not happen no matter how long you put the light on.

...in fact we are blasting the corals with slightly less intensity, but for much longer periods of time. Because of that, we are hitting that photoinhibition and then some anyway.
 
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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7461071#post7461071 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ahchung
I don't agree with it. According to my understanding, photoinhibition is intensity related and not time related. If the intensity of the light fixture does not reach the point of photoinhibition, photoinhibition will not happen no matter how long you put the light on.

Im sorry but this just doesnt seem to be a logical argument here. I do realize science does not always follow what logic would tell you, but everything points to exactly what I am saying and exactly opposite of what you are trying to say. The fact that you state that photoinhibition will not occur "no matter how long you put the light on" is just rediculous. Granted if you put NO (normal output) bulbs on there, then perhaps your right. But we are talking T5HO and 250w MH here. I would bet that both types are fully capable of getting pretty much any coral to photoinhibition within a photoperiod of less than 12 hours. Of course there are alot of factors here, but given a "good" setup....I think its absolutly possible and is happening in alot of tanks.


Here is a pratical situation to illustrate what I am talking about....You can go to those tanning booths that will give you 300% more UV than the typical tanning booth, and this will tan you in only 1/3 the time. So instead of staying in the tanning booth for 45mins, you only stay for 15mins. However just because the less powerful booths wont tan you in 15mins doesnt mean they wont burn the ever loving Shiiiz out of you if you stay in too long. I think that is the situation that is happening in our tanks. In our sitiation the T5/MH are analagous to the 45min booth which is not as strong as those 15min booths (The Sun), but we run our bulbs for a very long time at peak output, where the sun slowly comes up, is hottest for only a few hours, then starts to cool down. IMO, many of us are simply reaching that saturation point long before our photoperiod is up. My guess is that too much light is the no.1 reason for light colored corals because most of us do not have our nutrients so low as to cause this. Brown is typically too much nutrients, too little light or coral shock.
 
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I am still confused. In your illustration, no matter it is 15 mins or 45 mins, the UV intensity has reached the point of damage (i.e., photoinhibition). That's why, the skin hurts in both cases.

...You can go to those tanning booths that will give you 300% more UV than the typical tanning booth, and this will tan you in only 1/3 the time. So instead of staying in the tanning booth for 45mins, you only stay for 15mins. However just because the less powerful booths wont tan you in 15mins doesnt mean they wont burn the ever loving Shiiiz out of you if you stay in too long... [/B]
 
What about limited N or P ?


Here are some good reads about the subject.

http://www.fisherycrisis.com/coral3.html

http://www.fisherycrisis.com/coral4.html

http://www.fisherycrisis.com/coral6.html

Heres a small quote "The problem is that the susceptibility to photoinhibition is clearly increasing; does this reflect an increase in the ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œoligotrophicââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ quality of the water? Maybe water that was once ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œlowââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ in nutrients has recently become ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œextremely lowââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ in nutrients...to the point that corals are actually feeling the stress of ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œnitrogen starvation?ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚

If you read them all you will see a much larger picture.
 
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<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7462284#post7462284 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ahchung
I am still confused. In your illustration, no matter it is 15 mins or 45 mins, the UV intensity has reached the point of damage (i.e., photoinhibition). That's why, the skin hurts in both cases.

That is precisely what I am trying to say.......You said earlier

"According to my understanding, photoinhibition is intensity related and not time related. If the intensity of the light fixture does not reach the point of photoinhibition, photoinhibition will not happen no matter how long you put the light on."

That says to me that you believe that intensity is the only factor in reaching photoinhibition, when infact you have to take both intensity and time into account. My illustration does this.....
 
Perhaps the T-5 lights contain higher spikes in certain parts of the light wavelength that are more `problematic' for corals.

Dana Riddle showed an interesting experiment at IMAC [preliminary] using blue vs. red light and how certain wavelengths/regions might cause bleaching/etc or other damage to the coral's photosynthetic system.

Then again, maybe T-5's spectral plots suggest there's no spikes, no large amount of light in the red-end.

It gets me wondering what the differences are there with this light source in that sense - as we talk about differences between MH bulbs [spectral plots] on look and corals regularly, yet never seem to take this into account with other light systems.
 
I tend to agree with you Mark in that it has something to do with the spectral output of the bulbs. Just speculation but that makes more sense than anything to me.
FWIW, Chris
 
This might be a little redundant from other threads on RC - has anyone put together a list of all the available bulb brands and models including those used overseas? A lot of the *really* nice T5 lit SPS tanks that I've seen have one thing in common - none of them are in the US. I've always assumed that we use different make and model of bulbs but never really looked into it. If this is the case it would be really interesting to see some side by side spectral comparisons.

While we're at it what reflectors and ballasts are out there for T5?


My tank is lit with (6) 54w bulbs. The blue+ and aquablue are all by D&D (IIRC), the sun is by GE. My ballasts are the Triads (non-overdriving) and my reflectors are by Sunlight Supply.
 
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I have been searching in the internet for the factors related to photoinhibition, and I could find two factors only which are temperature and light intensity:

http://mars.reefkeepers.net/USHomePage/USArticles/bleaching/bleaching2.html

"It showed that photoinhibition arose at the high temperature or the high light"

If you can show me any references that say photoinhibition is time related, I believe in you.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7462612#post7462612 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Horace
That is precisely what I am trying to say.......You said earlier

"According to my understanding, photoinhibition is intensity related and not time related. If the intensity of the light fixture does not reach the point of photoinhibition, photoinhibition will not happen no matter how long you put the light on."

That says to me that you believe that intensity is the only factor in reaching photoinhibition, when infact you have to take both intensity and time into account. My illustration does this.....
 
I dont know much about photoinhabition but if it is not at all related to time that would mean we could leave our lights on for 24hrs...
 
What I learned from internet is that there exist two modes of calification, one with light and one without light.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7463607#post7463607 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dvanacker
I dont know much about photoinhabition but if it is not at all related to time that would mean we could leave our lights on for 24hrs...
 
Wow this is getting to be a long read but itââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s very interesting.

form what I have pulled from this article it seems like the majority of the people are experiencing bleaching and loss of color due to excessive light am I right

What can we do to fix this problem raze the bulbs better husbandry????

cb
 
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