[Coral-List] Suitable lighting for coral maintenance in the aquarium

Rüdiger Siek ruediger.siek at gmail.com
Fri Jun 2 05:43:03 EDT 2017


Dear Siviwe,

In your e-mail you mentioned, that you are looking for a lighting with
"natural daylight", but to be honest, it would be possible to keep your
corals with 0.3 watts / litre with 1:3 royal blue : blue LEDs without any
"white" light.
Blue wavelength have the highest emitted energy of all "visible" wavelength
(besides ultra-violet) and when you look at the absorption spectrum of
zooxanthellae, you can see, that the important wavelengths
are between 430 and 470 nm.
In 2009 I build my very first DIY high power LED lighting and found it a
good idea to put a 3 watt royal blue LED for "moonlight" in the center of
the lamp. Two weeks later I found my Stylopora bleached due to the
permanent light stress. You see, too much "blue light" is not healthy for
corals either.
>From my experience, the above mentioned mix 1:3:16 (royal blue : blue :
6500K) has been tried and tested by many aquarists.

If you need more help, feel free to e-mail me.

Kind regards,
Ruediger



2017-06-01 17:55 GMT+02:00 Tim Wijgerde <wijgerde at coralpublications.com>:

> Hi Ulf,
>
> Fortunately, today's aquarium lights can easily replicate nature in terms
> of
> irradiance, at least up to 1200 umol photons/m2/s. It depends on the size
> of
> your wallet, and of course the depth of your aquarium. I prefer the LED
> lights made by a well-known Dutch manufacturer of home appliances :-).
>
> Cheers,
>
> Tim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] On Behalf Of Ulf
> Erlingsson
> Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2017 4:42 PM
> To: Capman, William
> Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Suitable lighting for coral maintenance in the
> aquarium
>
> The other week I was a searching for info on light level on natural corals
> and found an article saying that aquariums notoriously have too little
> light, so you may want to measure in the field and make sure you get the
> appropriate light level in lux or in energy per square meter.
>
> Ulf Erlingsson
> President and CEO
> Lindorm, Inc.
> 10699 NW 123 St Rd
> Medley, FL 33178
>
> http://lindorm.com
> ceo at lindorm.com
> +1-305 888 0762 office
> +1-305 888 0978 fax
> +1-305 308 6334 mobile
>
>
>
>
> > On 2017-05-30, at 11:28 , Capman, William <capman at augsburg.edu> wrote:
> >
> > People are having good results with both LED and T5 lights (and
> > sometimes with combinations of the two!).
> >
> > Personally, my favorite lighting for small polyped stony corals is
> > metal halide - this is tried and true lighting for stony coral aquaria
> > that can give really excellent growth.  I have used 6500K bulbs as
> > well as 10,000k bulbs - the 6500K bulbs give excellent growth (some
> > folks have told me they feel 6500K bulbs give the best growth), though
> > corals do fine under the 10,000K bulbs and when appearance matters the
> latter look nicer.
> >
> > A rough rule of thumb from Delbeek and Sprung's wonderful book "The
> > Reef Aquarium" is 3 - 5 watts of light per gallon (those
> > recommendations were from the days of metal halide and fluorescent
> > lighting - I don't know how to translate that into LED lighting).
> > Personally, when using metal halide lighting I have tended to use
> > roughly 6 to 10 watts per gallon (e.g. a 250 or 400 watt metal halide
> > over a tank as small as 40 gallons), and have had excellent growth
> > with the likes of Pocillopora and various Acropora species (I imagine
> > this would be too much light for some deeper water corals though?).
> >
> > LED lights have the ability to be dimmed, and colors can be
> > manipulated (assuming you have some basis for deciding what color balance
> is good!).
> > Metal halides can create heat problems (not an issue though if you
> > have good temperature control in the room with your tanks).
> >
> > There are many different lighting options here, and what you go with
> > will likely in part depend on what you have available in your area.
> > Note that one needs to be careful about changes in light intensity, in
> > particular making adjustments to higher light gradually.
> >
> > If there are any good quality coral reef aquarium shops in your area I
> > would visit these and see what they are using and what they recommend.
> >
> > Even better:  See if there is a local coral reef aquarium hobbyist
> > group in your area - in the U.S anyway, I have found some of the
> > members of our local marine aquarium society to be *extremely*
> > knowledgeable and experienced, and this would likely give you the
> > opportunity to see a variety of fully functional coral reef systems in
> > person.  This is important because the lighting is only part of what
> > it takes to keep corals healthy and growing - the lighting is
> > important, but there is so much more to system design than just the
> lighting.
> >
> > Also, there are some wonderful online forums, such as
> > http://web1.reefcentral.com/forums/index.php?s=
> >
> > There is a wealth of information already in the discussion threads at
> > such forums (if you have time to wade through the many *many* threads
> > and posts and find the information relevant to you!), and there are
> > many helpful, knowledgeable people who could answer questions. And you
> > could probably find local coral reef aquarium hobbyists in your area
> through such forums.
> >
> > Even though you are apparently wanting to grow corals for research,
> > *don't underestimate the value of making connections with the reef
> > aquarium hobbyist community, since quite a few of these people are
> > extremely knowledgeable, very sophisticated aquarists with great skill
> > in growing and propagating corals.*  Some of the most amazing,
> > sophisticated coral reef aquarium systems (with healthy, thriving,
> > live corals) I have ever seen have been in people's homes, and quite a
> > lot of what we know about how to grow corals in aquaria was initially
> figured out by advanced hobbyists.
> >
> > I hope this helps (and I apologize for not making the metric
> conversions!).
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 7:18 PM, Zachary Ostroff
> > <zachostroff at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> I suggest reaching out to the public aquarium industry. They can help
> >> you select appropriate equipment for the dimensions of the system you
> >> need to illuminate, and what you desire to grow in it.
> >>
> >> Zach Ostroff
> >> Marine Exploration Center, St. Petersburg FL www.mecstpete.org
> >> <http://www.mecstpete.org/> Facebook.com/MECStPete
> >> <http://facebook.com/MECStPete>
> >>
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Message: 2
> >>> Date: Thu, 25 May 2017 15:58:11 +0000 (UTC)
> >>> From: SIVIWE ELVIS <siviweelvis at yahoo.com>
> >>> Subject: [Coral-List] Suitable lighting for coral maintenance in the
> >>>      aquarium
> >>> To: <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> >>> Message-ID: <1657713927.1964449.1495727891410 at mail.yahoo.com>
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> >>>
> >>> Dear fellow Coral Reef researchers
> >>>
> >>> I am interested in conducting aquarium experiments with corals
> >> (Pocillopora and Anomastrea species) to be collected from the wild
> >> (inter-tidal and sub-tidal zone). This is to inquire about the best
> >> lights to use which would produce the natural day light spectrum to
> >> mimic the natural coral environment, achieving optimal growth for
> >> these coral animals while in maintained in glass tanks.
> >>>
> >>> I am not good with lights but I seemingly need to make a choice
> >>> between
> >> either T5 (fluorescent tube) or T8 (LED strips tube) lights for coral
> >> maintenance. Any advice and suggestions or references in this regard
> >> will be highly appreciated.
> >>>
> >>> Thank you
> >>>
> >>> Best regards
> >>>
> >>> Siviwe Babane (MSc Marine Biology student)
> >>>
> >>> University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN)
> >>> College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science School of Life
> >>> Science Biological Science Department Westville, University road
> >>> Durban
> >>> 4000
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >>
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