zoo growth under actinic

[EMBRYOGUY]

good point wds.

ive been growing them under full actinic for over 8 months now atleast. i DO NOT recommend this or advocate this to anyone. i m just documenting my exp. i like the actinic look of my zoos and based on that reason im keeping them under it for now until i see signs of stress, but as i stated they are growing faster than ive had them under 50/50,

despite this, everything your staying makes complete sense. and i agree with it. but i cant dismiss what i see in my zoos.

thanks your input.

the orange zoos, i got them at a local fish store., they grow very easily. i jsut gave away a frag of them. pm me in a couple months and ill be more than hapy to give you some.

 

[ficklefins]

Not sure if anyone has moonlights in their tank, but if you shine a blue LED on zoas they will not close at night. Not sure if it made a difference in their growth or anything.

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

good point, fickle.

ive noticed that also.........

yes yes yes i wonder what the affect of them are on moonlights.

everyone says it promotes coral. stimulation but ...........

 

[wds21921]

The only stimulation I've noticed so far after 2 weeks of regular intervals is my zoa's do appear more healthy and have grown and opened fully.
Nothing so far to ricordia though.

 

[tarhull87]

awesome

 

[babyhuey]

please keep in mind, i dont necessarily advocat this. a full spectrum light makes more sense, but i cant hide the fact that ALL my zoo colonies look and are growing really well. most do not like the bluish look of the actinic only tank but if your into zoos mostly. the colors are amazing under it

ill post as they progress.

From what I hear and what I have seen my self when I have been scuba diving the light gets filtered threw the water and the only light that they get is a blue light . so in nature they will only recieve is blue light. but there bright colors of the zoos is not seen as well. So most people say use 10,000k bulbs so the color can be seen well and the corals will get some light. And from what most will say they zoos will adapt to what ever light they can get but in nature they will only recieve is blue light. that is what I have seen and read here and what I have seen while scuba diving

 

[rsteagall]

Any followups on this one?

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

great insight / info baby,

thank you for that response.


rstagall, sorry this is such an old thread. unfortunately the pure actinic, caused alot of coralline growth also and ive since than have switched to all mhs.

ive also moved towards dev. clownfish and away from coralss/ zoos.

 

[hot4teacher]

I went to a frag store and EVERYTHING was powered by actinic (T5 i believe). It hurt my eyes to be looking at the goods...it was so blue.

They had carpets of zoos growing like weeds in their tanks too...on the sand, glass, in the overflow box!

Dana

 

[rsteagall]

So, is it factual that all actinic lights increase growth and multiplication of zoas?

 

[WarrenG]

I've done a lot of scuba diving in tropical locales. It is true that sunlight is getting filtered and by the time you get near 120+ feet deep the light left over is mostly blue, but in the first 60-70 feet in clear water there is still lots of "white" light landing on the corals.

Understand that it is the amount of water that determines the level of light filtering. If you are looking off into the distance underwater (the background) the water is always blue because the light is filtered coming down from the surface, and also back to you, or off into the distance. For example, if you are 50 feet deep and looking at something 50 feet away that is 100 feet of light filtering. If you are looking at something that is only 2 feet away that is 52 feet of light filtering.


Here are some photos. http://www.usvh.com/photos.html
http://www.usvh.com/lightsphotos.html

I have noticed that light levels in some reef tanks exceeds the light levels I see in many areas where coral health is very good although corals (and clownfish anenomes) that like to live less than 10 feet deep would see higher light levels than we could put over a reef tank.

Just ballpark, but I use 4x90watt VHO's in a 90g tank and see light levels that are very close to what I usually see more than 10 feet deep on a reef.

For the fish, I see Flame Angels living in Hawaii at 60-80 feet where light levels are much lower than we often have over our tanks. They obviously prefer this.

As someone said, overall health of all of the animals in the tank is important so light needs of individual animals may need to be compromised to suit the overall needs.

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

warren,

amazing explanation!. thank you. thats as good of an explanation as one could ask for. your personal insight is very much appreciated.

 

[Dastank]

A few things:

I live on a subtropical island and there are zoos growing all over the place. Most of them are in 10 feet of water or less, with the mass majority being in less than 5 feet.

There is a coral propagation farm here on Okinawa and they keep all of their zoos under pure actinics and have unbelievable growth.

I'm not sure, but I think I might do some tests myself.

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

dasank,

thank you for that response. if a jap. farm is using actinics only. that makes me feel even more assured.

for the time frame that i had my zoos under actinics, they were always open and had the best growth ive ever experienced since ive been keeping zoos.

if my concentration was still with zoos, i def. would still have them under actinics.

 

[sprite]

dastank my in-laws live in urasoe city just north of naha last time i was there was a year ago..man that place changed in the last 10 years..i couldnt even hardly get around with out getting lost with all the new buildings

 

[jman77]

Are these actinics the 420's or 450's ?

 

[clownfrogfish]

Great Findings and infos.

 

[Dastank]

I'm afraid Okinawa is still growing like that too. It's changing all the time.

 

[lildraken]

It's funny because today I started to experiment with all actinics in my tank before I even read this thread! I have one 96 watt 420 nm and another 96 watt 420/460 nm.
all the blue kinda hurts my eyes, but all my shrooms/ and the 7 zoanthid polyps that i have are bright florescent looking. they're pretty! If they start to look bad then i'll change to 10,000k but I figure if they look better and grow better then how can you say it's unhealthy for them? anyway i'll keep ya'll posted

 

[wds21921]

I tried this for several months and the end results were less than spectacular.
Most of the corals started off doing much better or so it appeared during a short time period. After a few months they actually began to shrink and or lose some of there coloring. This appeared mostly and firstly from the mushrooms and then even a few of the zoas.

What I've since done that appears to work even better is to shorten my lighting cycle to 5 hours per day. Not only do the inverts get bigger but they're multiplying at the fastest rate I've ever seen.
The idea behind this came from an alage outbreak that I didn't feel like trying to keep up with through cut back maintenance. What's since happened is, my mushrooms have at least doubled in size in less than a month and multiplied. Same for zoas as well as hydnophora and my plate type corals.
Theoretically it goes along with normal growth in animals and plants that the greatest growth periods occure during sleep .