lighting???

1mg

1mg

New member
so there is that good post about light and coral relationship, but im wondering if there is any way to know how much light to have. they say that to much light will bleach the coral, to little will kill it. is they a better way than guess test and revise. i know you can move your coral around, and you can dim your lights. but what im looking for is a good way to know how much light you need to have 3 levels in your tank where we can put sps on top, zoas in the middle, and mushrooms and such in the sand. is there a better way than experimenting?:questionmark:
 
Yes and no. You can always use a PAR meter to get close ( there are some levels that are recommended 4 different types of corals). Ultimately, it comes down to the individual corals needs ( light and flow) and that means experimenting. A good rule of thumb is to start at the bottom of the tank and slowly move up.
 
so if you start at the bottom. how do you know when to move it up? do you just wait for it to start doing poorly?
 
1mg said:
so if you start at the bottom. how do you know when to move it up? do you just wait for it to start doing poorly?
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Others with more experience should chime in, but I would say you can move it up a little every week or two without causing any light shock.
 
i would just think everyone would come up with a better method than start at the bottom, move up ever few weeks till it is where u want or it bleached lol. i see light meters are not cheap though. i still think it is odd that they can get light shock, and that the zoozanthallae can not just take in all the light we give them the way a plant does
 
1mg said:
i would just think everyone would come up with a better method than start at the bottom, move up ever few weeks till it is where u want or it bleached lol. i see light meters are not cheap though. i still think it is odd that they can get light shock, and that the zoozanthallae can not just take in all the light we give them the way a plant does
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Any plant I have ever bought from a gardening center always comes with a card that says how much light that individual plant likes. You also have to remember a coral is not a plant it is an animal. Bleaching doesn't happen over night, so if you notice the coral is starting to lose color you just move it back down to where you had it last and keep it there. Light shock however can cause the coral to bleach over night, so you need to go slowly. You also have to remember when dealing with coloration that more factors then light come into play. I had my Alk dip on me, down to 5!!!, and I noticed my corals were starting to bleach. So make sure your levels are stable when you are trying to find that sweet spot for each coral or else you might never find it.
 
1mg said:
i would just think everyone would come up with a better method than start at the bottom, move up ever few weeks till it is where u want or it bleached lol. i see light meters are not cheap though. i still think it is odd that they can get light shock, and that the zoozanthallae can not just take in all the light we give them the way a plant does
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You can burn plants with too much light too, just saying... :)
 
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