Is light over-rated in our reef

[CHEMCHEF]

Well heres my .02
I am cycling my new tank now and have my livestock. (1 fish, 1 fire shrimp, and a handfull of SPS + LPS corals) Currently living in a 10 gal tank with 2 standars AGA flouresent strip light. Basicly starter kit lights>
It has been about 3-4 week and some corals,,, including SPS are doing better under this lighting then under a 6X18w Current t-5 on a small tank.
The cheapy light are about the same distance from the corals as the T-5 was on the previous tank.
The corals that are not looking better are diong about the same. Nothing seems to be suffering.
I have seen people with full blown SPS systems under PC lights and VHO's doing really really well.
So IMO yes most times high light is like Horsepower in a car. People think,, The more the better. But that is not always so.

BTW. I think Dukes point is,, Crazy excess light Vs. moderate light. Not Light Vs. no light....

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

so what your saying is if a regular hobbyist did this experiment it wouldnt be valid because they dont have a naae like sanjay or chris jury?where did they get there reputation from?im not saying i agree with there findings i just want other people opinions on this.everyone gets a good reputaion from one thing or another.matter of fact i knowa member on MR wo is know for having extreme growth in a bigger tank and he used VHOs for years.his SPS grow like weeds and his problem crals are our dream corals.im sure everyone knows who im talking about.so im not ready to write this of as a farse article because i dont know who the author was but i do remember he was a marine biologist

A regular hobbyist experiment can be valid but we have to know how he/she conducted the experiment. we SO FAR we still have no clue how the experiment is conducted in details. A celebrity name is a good reference because we see their previous work already and that we feel most of their experiment is pretty careful and thoughtful. Without seeing the original article, we can only guess the results summarized by you need to to be scrutinized.

A celerity work could be faulty too but in general we can see his work in the public so can scrutinize the work in the open instead a hearsay. Years back an article in Advanced Aquarist, an celebrated author conducted an experiment trying to discredit the Monaco System. In his conclusion, he summarized that the Monaco System does not work. But when I look at the pic, the sand seems odd looking, not very typical of the Monaco Systems I used to see in large deployment of the marine parks. I digged further and found that grain size used in the article is much bigger than the size documented in Monaco System patent owner's description. The summary of has no more meaning because the experiment is faulted even though it's done by a named correspondent in Advanced Aquarist.

So, we do want to see the article.

Assuming common household aquarist settings, I think
1)Water is priority one-coral die in a day when water change
2)Feeding grows the coral fast but demands a lot of filtering in home environment and thus many not so dedicated reefers feel that feeding is detrimental. Actually, the fact is that they cannot keep point (1)water chemistry in a good standing
3)Feeding give most corals certain protein that light alone cannot give.
4)Light give most coral energy to do what corals have to do.
5)With or without, home aquarist lighting will not kill the coral in a day, so their urgency is definitely not as important as (1)water chemistry
6)When light is much increased, many reefers do not increase the flow. The system suffers both because algae growth, respiration and excretion of toxin needed by the corals when photosynthesis is at its peak.
7)I can clearly see my system suffers when the flow is reduced due to clogged powerheads while lighting does not change as those tanks are under LEDs. Reversely, I also see the T5 tank suffers when the light output reduces due to age of bulb while flow has not changed. I cannot say flow is a water chemistry but water related. So still (1)water chemistry is priority ONE!

 

[Awibrandy]

I have read some articles on reef keeping over the past few months which most contradict the others from feeding to skimming and to this topic of lighting.Some articles go into detail about over-rated equipment for our reef tank.I was more interested in SPS since this is the reef i have chosen to keep.But these articles go into every type of corals from softies to lps to sps.Some even go into inverts like the anemone.Now all of the articles talk about we need light but how much is the question. That was question was always raised.There was a experiment done where they had 2 separate tanks with the same light cycle.One ran PC lighting and the other ran MH lighting.The difference was they fed the pc lighting heavily and the MH they did no feeding at all.They had the same stocking in both tanks and different species of all corals.The pc tank over i believe it was 6 months had vey good growth with limited color up and the other tank had color but not much growth in fAct some pieces died off in the MH tank.So what is the real answer here.Are we given false facts about how much light we need.Does anyone really know the answers to what we as reef keepers are doing.One of the articles also wrote that 90% of the coralswe keep dont use photosynthesis as a food source they live on phytoplankton in the water.Now i know we cant recreate the food sourse in the oceans but what is the real answer here.Anyone care to share in your thoughts

BTW. I think Dukes point is,, Crazy excess light Vs. moderate light. Not Light Vs. no light....

I agree with Chef to some extent! I believe what Duke is saying is that; Do we make to much of high lighting vs. low to moderate lighting with regular feeding.
My problem with the "study" is that the PC tank was fed, and the MH tank was not. This to me is not a very good "study". I feel that both tanks should have been, or neither of the two fed at all. That is if the "study" was suppose to be about lighting.

Also, I don't think Duke can give a link since he states he may have read it in a Magazine.

 

[duke62]

yes awida it was in a magazine.i pretty much ran through what was said except for the authors name.i just thought it would be a good discussion rather then the normal what skimmer should i use"thread LOL.gets us thinking

 

[tunicata]

When evaluating research, regardless of the person/s performing it, the reader should be aware of all of the parameters and variables. I believe it would be a mistake to say that
"If 10 research science PHds/non Phd hobbyist found that VHOs give SPS great color" alone meant anything.

I would not go out and start a craze on VHO's and doubt everything else. I would question tank size, water type, temp, etc. All of the living and non-living aspects of the research conditions.

Especially since as we know as active hobbyists, regardless of degree/educational background, our tanks can thrive under many conditions.

My old tank killed softies, couldn't get them to grow. But LPS growth was phenomenal.
My advisor's tank had softies growing like weeds, but nothing else would thrive. Same factors except for the mix of salt.

Also, reputation is important (in every field). I'm a marine biologist and a hobbyist by both degree and practical experience. No one in the scientific community would listen to what I said unless I had an extensive history of work passing extensive peer reviews to ensure quality and validity of the research.

 

[marrone]

When evaluating research, regardless of the person/s performing it, the reader should be aware of all of the parameters and variables. I believe it would be a mistake to say that
"If 10 research science PHds/non Phd hobbyist found that VHOs give SPS great color" alone meant anything.

I would not go out and start a craze on VHO's and doubt everything else.

This is the problem, you mayn't but a lot of other hobbyist would. You see this all the time. Someone posts that they're running their tank this way, and then post pictures showing unbelievable results. Everyone then follows, regardless if they understand the whole reason why the person got those results or not, and if they would have the same effect on their tanks. Just look at sand, we went from just a little, to DSB to Plenums to bare bottom to back to some sand to just sand, or DSB, in the refug. The same with lighting and adding supplements.