SPS color and light intensity

[OneReef]

Have any of you with SPS experience seen that certain colors of SPS need more or less lighting that others? I mean, do blue colored acropora need more or less light than say a pink or yellow/green acropora? I was just curious if bluer/purple shades need different light intensity than other colors.

 

[seapug]

Pigment colors can sometimes indicate what depth a coral came from, but that generally isn't the case with Acroporas.

That said, there are many kinds of deep water Acros making their way into the market nowadays that will do fine with less light. They generally have thinner, smoother branches with more widely spaced polyps than the shallow water species. A. lokani and A. carolina are two species that pretty easy to come across right now.

 

[styndall]

Much typical hobbiest wisdom about corals is wrong. Read this:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-03/cj/index.php

and be educated.

 

[seapug]

Good read, but that article has little to do with this question.

 

[Peter Eichler]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12407863#post12407863 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by seapug
Good read, but that article has little to do with this question.

There's really no rule. A wide variety of colors can result from a wide variety of irradiance levels. While one color may shoe hues of blue when given high light levels another might only show blue in lower light levels and may bleach or tuen another color in high light levels.

 

[seapug]

The Reef Aquarium Vol. 3 book goes into this topic in some depth.

It's true there are no "rules" that apply across the board, but with some species of corals there is a correlation between color and water depth and/or tubidity. For example, many red pigmented LPS corals like Scolymias, Cynarinas, Trachyphyllias and Fungias come from deep or turbid water and do better in reduced light areas of the tank. The red pigmentation is thought to be an adaptation to absorb light from the green or blue part of the spectrum that dominates at greater depths or turbid water.