Zoos under natural lighting observation

[raskal311]

I have a 2x2x1 prop tank that runs 90% natural ambient lighting, no direct sunlight at all. The tank only get about 3-4 hours of ambient lighting a day and I only have MH on when I have people come over to buy stuff. Well the other night a friend brought over some of his zoos that he did not have room for and I notice that the colors of his zoos and my zoos were completely different. Now the pieces he brought over were pieces we bought together a bit over a week ago, basically identical colonies. Anyway heââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢s been keeping his zoos under 14k 250watt MH at about 12deep. I had mine about 6ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ deep but only in ambient lighting. Not very bright compared to his 250watt MH.

An observation I made just last night was that my zoos were much much darker in color then his. And the only thing I could think of is the natural lighting I was using. I also moved some true blue zoos out of my main tank to the prop tank a few weeks back and the color is darker blue then Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve ever seen before. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m going to take a few comparison pictures when I got home.

Anyway does anyone keep their zoos in natural light? Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m pondering about moving my new prop system outside. But probably not until after this coming summer. Anyway check back for picturesââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦Ã¢â"šÂ¬Ã‚¦..

 

[whodah]

how long had the blues been in your ambient lighting prop tank when you noticed they were considerably darker?

 

[Jeremy Blaze]

They were likely darkening up due to an eplosion of zoanthelle in the polyps to try and capture more light, due to the lack of a long, strong photoperiod.

Get a lux reading of your ambient light, and I bet it would be much less than your friends mh.

Now, moveing them to get dorect sunlight for most of the day, will be different, and likely much better.

 

[raskal311]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7302121#post7302121 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by whodah
how long had the blues been in your ambient lighting prop tank when you noticed they were considerably darker?

they blues were in my main display for along time but I had green zoos grow over them so they haven't opened for months. It ook them 3 weeks to start to open again in my prop. They have been in my prop for 5-6 weeks now.

 

[raskal311]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7302472#post7302472 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jeremy Blaze
They were likely darkening up due to an eplosion of zoanthelle in the polyps to try and capture more light, due to the lack of a long, strong photoperiod.

Get a lux reading of your ambient light, and I bet it would be much less than your friends mh.

Now, moveing them to get dorect sunlight for most of the day, will be different, and likely much better.

Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve had zoos under low PC lighting and when moved to stronger MH they colored improved dramatically under MH vs. PC, so I don't think low lighting would cause them to darken. Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ve actually notice true loosing color under low lighting.

 

[raskal311]

ok here are the pictures

zoos in my tank for a bit over a week

friends zoos

both picture taken today, both are now in my tank. Picture under same camera setting.