Coral growth

[TonyEnr]

Anyone care to share their opinion on actinic lighting enhancing coral growth? Ive been hearing and seeing peoples reef tanks that use majority or solely actinic lighting....how true is this?

 

[bigben2057]

Anyone care to share their opinion on actinic lighting enhancing coral growth? Ive been hearing and seeing peoples reef tanks that use majority or solely actinic lighting....how true is this?

Never have heard this...Actinic lighting is mostly for look. If were talkin t5 if you were to put good white halides over the tank i guarantee it would grow better. The intensity of the light is what grows coral not so much color. You are trying to mimic the sun.

 

[TonyEnr]

Ok that's what I thought. I run a 120w VHO Led on my tank and everything is growing fine I was just curious because I heard and seen a few tanks lately that are all decked out with blue lighting and thought maybe I was missing out on something lol. I did switch my timers up a little, as an experiment, and had my actinics stay on for 2 hours before and after my day lights which were on a total of like 6 hours and I really just seen an increase in hair algae.

 

[Schism]

Ok that's what I thought. I run a 120w VHO Led on my tank and everything is growing fine I was just curious because I heard and seen a few tanks lately that are all decked out with blue lighting and thought maybe I was missing out on something lol. I did switch my timers up a little, as an experiment, and had my actinics stay on for 2 hours before and after my day lights which were on a total of like 6 hours and I really just seen an increase in hair algae.

If your looking for growth then your gonna want to extend your photoperiod to 10-12 hours, 6 wont cut it. You will only see algae if you have excess nutrients.

 

[MikeYQM]

Actinic lighting is more useful for coloration (and over all look as mentioned. It contains UV spectrum light which causes the zooxanthellae to go into "sunscreen" mode, blocking the UV light. This has a great effect on coloration.

If you alter your spectrum or photo period, do it slowly over a few days/weeks to acclimate your coral.

 

[TonyEnr]

Ok thanks for the info guys. Yeah I did that short experiment with my lighting for a few weeks but have been back to my actinics coming on 1hr 1/2 before my daylight( which is on for 7hrs) and the actinics remaining on for another 1hr 1/2 after the daylights have shut off. Everything seems fine.