Enough par?

[RickvD]

Hello!

I rented a par meter cause I kept messing with my AI Prime 16HD settings.

The way I got it set up right now is that the top of my rocks, which will have easy SPS like Montipora gets 200-250 PAR.

The middle part which will have Euphyllia like Hammers and Frogspawn will get 150-200 and the bottom part which will have Zoas get 60-100. All of these settings are on the highest points of the schedule so 12:00-16:00. These PAR readings are with flow on. I also tested with flow off, but forgot to write them down.

The schedule: 

[jservedio]

That's more than enough light for basically anything. That said, your lights don't operate in a vacuum and the stronger your lighting is and the longer you run them, the more nutrients and flow you need to support it. I see your peak is about 4 hours, but you are getting ~75% of peak for like 8 or 10 hours - that's good a bit of light.

 

I wouldn't increase your lighting any more than it is without having a good reason and if I were to increase it, I wouldn't do it without also having stable, healthy nutrient levels. I would also do it very slowly - over a month or so. It's not hard with modern LEDs to light bleach corals and that can take many, many months to recover from yet can happen in just a matter of days. But, it's basically impossible to starve them of light and if you do, it takes many, many months to happen, is very obvious, and you can recover from it in just a few weeks. Go slowly with lighting - there is no benefit of doing it fast.

[RickvD]

On 10/4/2023 at 7:06 PM, jservedio said:

That's more than enough light for basically anything. That said, your lights don't operate in a vacuum and the stronger your lighting is and the longer you run them, the more nutrients and flow you need to support it. I see your peak is about 4 hours, but you are getting ~75% of peak for like 8 or 10 hours - that's good a bit of light.

Great to hear that. However all my zoas are starting to pull more upwards to the light. I've read that means they are not getting enough light. Is this fine and are they just getting used to it? Or should I slowly increase brightness.

[mcarroll]

Flow matters a lot too....what kind of flow are those particular colonies in?

[jservedio]

16 hours ago, RickvD said:

Great to hear that. However all my zoas are starting to pull more upwards to the light. I've read that means they are not getting enough light. Is this fine and are they just getting used to it? Or should I slowly increase brightness.

Not all zoas or palys like "low light". I've got z/ps in 40 PAR and others in 400. It totally depends on the colony. If your other corals are happy, you should move the colony, assuming it's actually light related. Nutrients and flow stable, then you can slowly adjust light if other corals are showing signs of lack of light. Corals take a very, very long time to go downhill from lack of light and can recover in days but can light bleach in just days and take many months to recover from too much light.

[RickvD]

On 10/7/2023 at 3:04 PM, jservedio said:

Not all zoas or palys like "low light". I've got z/ps in 40 PAR and others in 400. It totally depends on the colony. If your other corals are happy, you should move the colony, assuming it's actually light related. Nutrients and flow stable, then you can slowly adjust light if other corals are showing signs of lack of light. Corals take a very, very long time to go downhill from lack of light and can recover in days but can light bleach in just days and take many months to recover from too much light.

I made the lightning so that with flow off they really get the "minimum" amount of pars. Now that I can see that they rather have a bit more light (almost all of the zoas are stretching out) I think I should slowly up my lights. The PAR meter is sadly back at the store so I can't use that. I changed my flow so it's more random and a bit stronger. I was thinking about increasing the brightness of the whole schedule with 5% weekly. So every Monday I make it 5% stronger, then check for a week if I notice anything different, then up it 5% more the next Monday.

 

On 10/7/2023 at 5:13 AM, mcarroll said:

what kind of flow are those particular colonies in?

Medium to high flow. They are right in front of the wavemaker, but under it. The wavemaker flows over the zoas so most of the flow gets past them.