Are we overlighting our LPS tanks?

[fritz]

It's often been said that we overlight our sps tanks. I never believed Anthony Calfo when he said this in his presentations. He always said that corals need; flow, food and light, in that order. He states that we often compensate for lack of the first two by oversupplying light.

Because I was changing my tank over and redoing some things, for the last three weeks I've been lighting my sps reef with 108 watts of T5 light. I haven't had the best colors by any means, which is also due to a lack of husbandry, but I have had growth. My tank saw about 80X turnover and I was running a zeolite system, thereby supplying food for the corals. After the last three weeks I must say that Anthony Calfo is correct. I don't know that you can have fantastic looking corals with such low light but you can grow them, that is for sure.

That little experiment led me to wonder about LPS corals. Being that LPS corals come from deeper, and often muddier water than sps corals, their need for light, in the wild, is FAR lower. Also being that LPS corals refract light, rather than reflecting it as their higher light needing cousins do, their pigmentation is designed to "hold onto light" rather than reflect it.

This leads me to believe that while it may be true we overlight our sps tanks, we are surely overlighting our lps tanks. Does anyone have a non MH LPS tank? I've seen Masterswimmers tank and it very nice indeed. Anyone else have one, FTS perhaps?

 

[DEEPWATER]

Interesting ,Ive been using 175W MH on my 90 with no problems ,even my one or 2 sps i have grow like crazy ,,less then 500W in total with actinics ,MH are on only 6 hr a day ,act are on for 12

 

[fritz]

I've always used "too much" light and it hasn't been "too much" IMO. After this last few weeks watching sps grow under 108 watts of T5, I'm kind of dumbfounded. Now don't try this at home! As I mentioned my flow was very specifically setup and high! I ran a very low nutrient system and provided food for my corals to compensate for the utter lack of light. I also ran the T5s for 12 hours a day.

If 108 watts + food & flow was enough for SPS I would think that less photosynthesis dependent animals would tolerate far less light but perhaps not. Perhaps that amount of light (from VERY high PAR bulbs) is the bare minimum to get that PAR throughout the tank. Perhaps a less light would not penetrate the water well enough to be usefull.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I think there was a comparison done as week with the kelvin ratings, the low K bulbs promoted more growth but the higher k's promoted better coloration on corals, I am not sure if the study was done on all corals or just sps. I think because you were feeding the corals well and had great flow you saw great results as well.

 

[fritz]

Definately Chief, I think without the flow and food I would have killed them or at the very least sent them into some major starvation shock. The bulbs that I was using were ATI Blue special (11k bulbs) on a Fullham Workhorse Ballast using icecap reflectors.

 

[meschaefer]

I have been thinking about lighting requirements alot recently as I plan out my upgrade. When I first got started I had 55 gallon, which I used a single 175 MH and two 65 pc actnics. I had very good growth on my hammer coral which was the only LPS I had in the tank.

I generally think that this hobby has a "take it to the max" attitude and a attitude of one upmanship without really looking at the needs of the animals. There are alot of tanks out there with softies, wich are being lit by 250w MH, wich is complete overkill. This happened because people just parroted things they heard in various threads and discussions and before you know it you "need" 250w MH in order to be succesfull.

 

[Deanos]

Does anyone have a non MH LPS tank?

:grumpy:

 

[fritz]

I generally think that this hobby has a "take it to the max" attitude and a attitude of one upmanship without really looking at the needs of the animals.

I couldn't agree more and must admit that I'm part of the problem. I always recommend to people that they buy the "biggest and best they can afford" in case they upgrade down the road. This hobby is very expensive and nothing is worse than buying something twice. It is often, as you mentioned WAY overkill.

As to Ronen's tank, even though he does use dual 175 watt MHs, he uses Reeflux bulbs which are very low on the PAR scale for MH bulbs.

 

[NYreefNoob]

light's

i currently have a mixed reef, with mainly lps. and running 234w 6 39w t5's. i am getting decent growth across the board, but i will say this. i dont get the color that they was under mh. i am actually doing a 6 month guide with photo's to watch growth of tank under these light's

 

[fritz]

i currently have a mixed reef.... i dont get the color that they was under mh.

Blanket statements will quickly take this thread WAY off track. A mixed reef is an unnatural arrangement of animals that come from very different places. Seeing lions in the same cage as polar bears and flamingos is neat to see but none of the animals are happy. You'll never get peak anything in a mixed reef, if nature can't pull it off in the ocean trust me you can't do it in a small glass box. Their VERY different needs cannot be met in a "mixed" environment.

Going back to topic, T5s can very greatly depending on the ballast, reflector and bulb choice. The same way a 250 watt MH bulb will make your colors look different depending on which 250 watt bulb you use and on which ballast. You could be either blasting your corals with much more par, much less par or just the wrong color of light. Do you have bulbs that bring out reds, yellows, or greens? Often T5 setups that I see are filled with mostly blue bulbs and the colors are very washed out, the same as they would be under 20k MHs.

Even with a poor T5s setup I think using some 6500k bulbs or even 3000k along with blues and 11k bulbs will give you representation of the entire spectrum and bring those colors back.

 

[fritz]

I just wanted to BUMP this in the hopes of getting some reef related discussion going on the board today.

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with this?

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I think typically most (not all) LPS have lower requirements than other corals due to their locations and such. Some LPS are in the high req area but most are in the med req area. I hope that makes sense. Again I am talking in laymans terms.

 

[fritz]

I agree 100%! You ran MH for awhile on your tank, how did it do? How did the corals react? Did you find it better or worse overall for their coloration and health?

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I am still running MH on the tank, 150w. I think once I got the corals used to the higher light they adapted fine. I took approx 2 months to get them acclimated to the higher light. I also have things like my blastos in the light but not in direct light. Some LPS like my acans are out in direct light.

 

[Deanos]

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with this?

I have a few thoughts, but you're looking for people with non-MH LPS tanks.

 

[Reefer420]

I have 80w of PC light in my 16g- and even have a clam up top (almost 2 years now) - things seem fine...lots of growth and everything does well.

that being said, I would love to upgrade to 150w MH (the same sunpod cheif has) - I think that would be fine on my tank.

 

[fritz]

How are the colors? Do you find the corals to be doing better under the MH? I've read and heard many times in many places that generally speaking, LPS are very adaptable in terms of their light tolerance. While they may be "low light" animals, many species readily adapt to high light environments. I wonder what this adaptation does to their coloration.

As a side note, there really is nothing like the shimmer lines produced by MH

 

[fritz]

I have a few thoughts, but you're looking for people with non-MH LPS tanks.

Hahaha, of course not! I was looking for insight from non MH users but MH LPS tank havers are more than welcome to add their experiences. The thread was "Are we overlighting our LPS tanks" I'd love to hear from some users that use "a lot of light" on their LPS tanks.

 

[Reefer420]

I think a few things in my tank would do better w/ the 150w of MH instead of PC... clam, brain coral near the bottom, zoos.

I think the acans, frogspawn, etc would be fine - hope they don't dislike the extra light!

 

[prattreef]

I think the term "over-lighting" is problematic. IME LPS corals don't NEED a lot of light to grow and thrive and look pretty, but most will ADAPT to higher light environments quite readily. In fact, most seem to not care that much at all. I think it can be fairly said that you do not need MH or particularly intense light with most LPS, but similarly if you are keeping say clams additionally, they will fair just fine.

I do however think that the recommendation to buy MH or appropriate T-5 if possible is still reasonable for most hobbyists as most will eventually wan to try more demanding animals. If you are confident that is not the case, I say save your $$$.

FWIW, I tend to think people go overboard with lighting for SPS too.

Randy