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Author Topic: Lighting discussion...  (Read 1514 times)

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Offline SweetReefOH

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Lighting discussion...
« on: September 07, 2018, 17:06:34 »
I’ve been thinking about how so many people talk about having their corals in 400 par, 500 par and even up to 700 par. In my experience with the 75, I can’t put a coral in anything over 280 par or it kills the coral. Even the hardiest of corals. So I’m wondering... what is the best way to color and grow your corals.

250 Par for 12 hours
350 Par for 8 hours
450 Par for 4 hours




Offline merlin3

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Re: Lighting discussion...
« Reply #1 on: September 07, 2018, 18:20:28 »
To me par doesn't matter, put the corals where they are happy. They will tell you. Corals need different par in different situations /water parameters so one persons par #s might not work for you.

Offline CoralBeauties

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Re: Lighting discussion...
« Reply #2 on: September 07, 2018, 22:32:04 »
I have never understood what is going on with your tank and the par readings. I'm one of those that are baking my corals with as much as 700 par and feel I have good color.  I do ramp my intensity up to that level and keep it there for only about 4 hours before starting to ramp back down. I think a lot of color in a corals come from a bit of dirty water. I have always seemed to have some sort of algae growing and I get good coloration. I'm like Justin and say stick with what works for you because everyone's system is different and their corals react different.
Jeff

Offline SweetReefOH

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Re: Lighting discussion...
« Reply #3 on: September 08, 2018, 09:48:37 »
Thanks for the input guys.
I think one problem is that I have no baseline to start from. My recent experience is leading me to believe that the UV channel was a factor in burning the coral. I’m thinking that maybe the par meter doesn’t pick that channel up. My “study” piece is a PC Rainbow I got from Brian a few weeks ago. He said under low par it will turn green and under high par it will be pink/red. Well, he’s only in 240 par and has maintained his pink/red tips and has crazy crazy polyp extension. It’s also encrusting nicely with no signs of burn. However, the Blueberry I got from you Jeff is in 270 par and he pulled his polyps in and started showing stress around the base. So, I knocked my UV channel down from 90% to 70% and it seems to be much happier. I guess I shouldn’t worry about what the meter shows, like Justin said, but I’m a mechanical thinker and it bugs me that I don’t know what’s going on lol.

Offline Agame43

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Re: Lighting discussion...
« Reply #4 on: September 08, 2018, 21:09:18 »
Jesse, you have seen my 120g tank, I ran basically a 6bulb T5 on it forever and you took pics of the results. With my upper level of rock the PAR value ranged from 250 - maybe in a great spot 400 and my SPS did great. I do have to agree with JJOOS a bit of dirt in the water is not a bad thing, I ran high Nitrates for quit a bit and all was well, got to say even with this high Nitrate I  had little algae problems.

  Food for thought, RW

 

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