Needed PAR levels for varying corals.

[hypnoj]

Interesting numbers, thanks for posting those

 

[Bryopsis]

Just a couple thoughts I've collected over the years..

Advanced aquarist did a writeup on red, they only did one or two species, but found red seems to be a "controller" spectrum this specific coral used to decipher how 'fast' to run it's photo-metabolics. The less red, the more blue it allowed, the more red, the less blue it allowed. (to prevent over-saturation of photo-cells iirc)

Also, I've seen in the recent 4 macna videos, one guy talking about symbiant mechanics in coral. And they have found even the same genus/species of corals can indeed have multiple symbiants for zooxanthellae. Meaning, there's a tolerance range associated with the zooxanthellaes. For example, you have 2 green slimers. But one contains zooxanthellae that is perfectly acceptable with a temp range of 75-78, and another that only prefers 75-76 degrees. So it's very practical to guess that these fundamentals may indeed apply to acceptable PAR ranges. Meaning 2 identical corals could respond differently to different PAR/spectrum. (I think that's probably more applicable to PAR than spectrum given what advanced aquarist found about spectrum contributing to 'facultative spectrum' concerning red)

So these tidbits definitely fly in the face of 'all green slimers are the same' mentality when talking about PAR readings and placement of coral. Even more so as the macna researcher said they found some zooxanthellaes only had a slim range of tolerance before bleaching, in the case of temp, it was as little as 2 degrees in which they saw a reaction that led to bleaching.

 

[hypnoj]

so would you say that red is necessary in growing corals (ie adding a couple red LED's to my fixture)?

 

[Bryopsis]

so would you say that red is necessary in growing corals (ie adding a couple red LED's to my fixture)?

I've seen people say both ways, but I've seen more comments saying 'when I put red in and turned it up, I got a lot of algae'. (which makes sense because algae will utilize red for sure)

I had a similar experience, I'll leave the pure red led's to the algae scrubbers. (recent algae scrubbers utilize only red led's)
(you get a decent amount of red spectrum appearing from white led's)

 

[Big E]

Tim,
I think I have that book, I'll go look up whatever I can find. Thanks for posting the PAR numbers for your tank. Very helpful Now I just need to get some PAR numbers for low light corals like chalices.

Chalices do best below 100 par. I'd target 60-80. If you do that you don't have to put them under ledges and shadows and it allows you to really enjoy their colors under full direct light.

From my experiences and par testing ---

Acros do well between 250-500 range as a general rule. It's a bit difficult to see the color changes in that range as they are subtle. Sweet spot is 300-350

Smooth skin acros - 250 range

Millis like the higher ranges and will color better.

 

[hypnoj]

nice, thank you

 

[Chris Lakies]

Chalices do best below 100 par. I'd target 60-80. If you do that you don't have to put them under ledges and shadows and it allows you to really enjoy their colors under full direct light.



From my experiences and par testing ---



Acros do well between 250-500 range as a general rule. It's a bit difficult to see the color changes in that range as they are subtle. Sweet spot is 300-350



Smooth skin acros - 250 range



Millis like the higher ranges and will color better.

Exactly! I try to target acros from 250-350.

 

[thepotoo]

Gonna bump an old thread here because I'm looking for this info. The numbers posted above are from the Seneye website. If those numbers are anything light the freshwater plant numbers they have, they are off by an order of magnitude.

Anyone want to post PAR readings from your tank along with a pic of the coral?