Lighting Minimum

[IceTurf]

What are the minimum lighting requirments for SPS, high light requiring corals, in your opinion? *to keep these corals alive and within reasonable health*

Lower, soft corals?

[Aquattro]

SPS, to live and be in reasonable health, IMO, need at least 175w MH. I have seen acros live and even grow under much less, but the light was 6 inches away. I'm not familiar with the T5 technology, so no idea what they would offer. To get nice color and growth, I'd go up to 250w minimum. A lot of this depends on the depth of the tank though

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I kept Montipora Capricornis alive with PC lighting, but its colours faded. HO T5 or Metal Halide would be the minimum for SPS to thrive.

[andresont]

i have tried 96x2 PC for SPS.
Was enough to survive but no color show. HO T5 with Tek reflectors is minimum. .
MH is proven to be excellent for SPS.
If MH is you choice I’d go with 250HQI DE. With good ballast like M80, also good reflector is a KEY.

I think if you go with 175W MH, you’d still have almost same heat issues as with 250W’s and you WILL want to upgrade !.
So 250w and good cooling fans and/or chiller should be in the budget.

[IceTurf]

300$ later, but if i found some on ebay.. anyone tried the ebay MH's before? For 10 gallons, or less *yea I like pushing the limits*, I think that would be a bit much, but the bigger the better, lol

[Aquattro]

well, you forgot to mention the 10g part. Probably look through the nano threads to what people use.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

If I had a 10G, I would definitely look into something like this (http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=15489) (the 150w version).

[IceTurf]

tks for the info&links

[kwirky]

Back when I had T5 HO teklights they bleached my first SPS I ever got :)

I'm going to be seeing if 150W 14k aquatinic lighting with PC actinics will be enough for SPS on my little 24g tank. It's only 16" deep and running zeovit too *crosses fingers*. I think water clarity has a part in it too. With my softies and LPS (again in my previous tank) I started running active carbon and the water all of a sudden cleared. I had a few colonies bleach on me.

I've been reading all of advanced aquarist's articles on coral colouration too and I think from looking at the articles as a whole it's the symbiotic algae that needs the light. If you can supply sustenence to your coral through other means then the coral can thrive in a lower light environment. For instance if you have mature rock providing lots of microfauna or even the bio supplementation products that could be magic or could be snake oil :)

I think the actual studies on lighting and colouration in corals being done by advanced aquarist are quite exciting but I'm a geek that way :X

[IceTurf]

Hmm, keep it coming, this forum is giving me a good idea of what I need if I wish to keep acropora

So carbon is bad for the corals? Did your corals get their color back? I'm planning on running my filter with carbon *and some LR rubble, maybe some algea stuff*, which now I'm wondering if it could cause the corals problems.

So a live rock which has colonies of microfauna*looks up quickly lol*, oh well that told me allot, so if i have a live rock with colonies of small/microscopic animals, the acropora color will be aided?

[Reefer Rob]

When you say SPS what do you mean? There are so many different types with so many different light requirements. Has anyone ever kept Acropora is a 10G long term? Lighting requirements aside, I thing it would be a real pain to keep the water parameters stable enough for them... unless you hooked it up to a 50G sump.

[Jason McK]

Ya I think Rob makes the best point. Light will be the least of your issues. Unless you have a large sump LOL

J

[IceTurf]

lol, I would definitally be waiting a long time to make sure my parameters were nice and level, before adding SPS corals. By SPS i mean high light requireing corals, such as *yea my favorite, although hardest to keep* Acropora.

lol, just run a sump line a few miles to someone elses tank, yea that would likely be easier.

Well I was thinking about an internal sump that would be about 3 gallons, possibly a section or end of the 10 gallon which was seperate from the coral section. Containing LR rubble, algea and other good stuff.

[Jason McK]

the problem with a 10G ( I had 1 for about 1 year) Is that it is very hard to get stable. Evaporation alone can cause such huge changes to the water make up.
unlike larger tanks smaller changes effect a 10G huge

J

[IceTurf]

Well I've found a way to keep the evaporation levels in check, a simple auto top off system, and for a smaller tank I don't have to be worried that the auto top off will run dry of a day's worth of evaporation. Yea I know, bigger is always better, unless you have no place to put the bigger. I may just give up on SPS corals for a while.

If you had say a tank, that was completely closed, with no area or space for evaportation and for outside influence, but with clear sections to allow for light to get in, could SPS corals do better or worse in an already cycled, closed tank? *assuming that you could somehow add calcium and other good stuff to aid it with life functions*

[mark]

Seal up at tank shine a bright light on it you'll have a greenhouse effect. Also your tank still needs the exchange of air.

No sure what you're planning for ATO but here's (http://www.aqualan.com/products.html) a simple gravity type.

If you are forced to go small, should skip the SPS (and the expensive lights). There's lots of really nice nanos out there with easier stocking and demands. Something as simple as a piece of LR, a mushroom and a shrimp can gorgeous if done properly, think bonsai.

[IceTurf]

Ha, yea I had found a good DIY designs for an ATO similar to that one, but tks. Simple gravity type ATO's when done right are some of the easiest ones going.

Has anyone tried LED lighting for SPS corals?

Hmm, ok nvm the closed system idea.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

LED lighting is probably good enough, but VERY expensive!

[IceTurf]

How many LEd's would it take, do you think, to provide enough light for SPS corals?

[Reefer Rob]

2 T5 tubes the same length as the width of your tank would work great. Think about at least putting a HOB refugium on if you're not using a sump.

[IceTurf]

Yea, I have a nice aquaclear which I can use for a refugium, as I see the usefulness of them, although I seem to have lost my nice clear aquaclear lid, not that its important lol.

T5 bulbs with any particular rating other then, at least having 10 000 kelvin?

I should rename this thread, custom 10 gallon SPS tank.

[Reefer Rob]

50/50 Aquablue/Blueplus is my favorite look, but it's all personal taste.

[IceTurf]

and this actually would work for SPS corals?*i'm assuming u mean it would, but just to be sure*

[Reefer Rob]

Oh, you're still doing the SPS thing. Normally for SPS you pretty much fill the top of your tank with T5 reflectors. Not sure how this would apply to a nano though, might need some barbecue sauce to go with it. I'm thinking maybe 4 tubes wired on 2 circuits. 2 tubes on for a 12 hour photo-period, and all 4 on for as long as your corals can handle it. On my 72G I had 6 54W tubes on for 12 hours, and it worked well for SPS. You should check out some nano forums before you do anything.

[IceTurf]

I found another bulb, not quite the ones you reccomended, as those are too long, great stats, but too long to be of value. It is a 50/50, 14 000k and a 7 400k bulb, although I did a quick search on wetwebmedia and these are not reccomended. I think I was sick the day of kelvin explination at school, why would 14 000k be bad compared to a 10 000k bulb? *and yea, the 7400 daylight part isn't the best, but ignoring that*