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

[Damien Beri]

All great advice! Love seeing the DIY advise here, definitely hard to come by trusted advise and instructions like those! 

Personally, having built many a reef tank from pico to macro (>1500 g) I would recommend if you didn't want to DIY, and something semi reliable against salt creep and the tank depth is anywhere from 1-3 feet, a "Radion XR30w pro G4."  The lens of these lights helps to properly "blend" the LEDs together so you don't get hot spots where certain color spectrums are much more intense on certain locations.  Definitely a pricey option running at about 800$.  However you can program all the color channels independently, set the programming, and control the lighting via wi-fi from anywhere on your phone.  I have seen the best growth of corals, clams, and macro-algae all around with these lights.  They also have supported research articles depicting the best light programs to use and their customer support is great.  I don't work for them I promise. 

A little cheaper options would be "Aquatic Illumination" or "kessil" products.  Like I said these are all non-DIY and a pricey way to go.  

However supporting these companies helps to advance "coral lighting" research since that's their main focus.

Warm regards,
Damien Beri

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 31, 2017, at 7:43 AM, Rüdiger Siek <ruediger.siek at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Dear Siviwe,
> 
> I am really experienced with LED lights.
> I suggest 0.5 - 1 watts / litre. Do not use ultra violet LED.
> The best configuration I experienced was a ratio of 1 (royal blue) : 3
> (blue) : 16 (daylight 6500K) LEDs.
> You can easily build your lighting by yourself, you just need a suitable
> power supply (with 350mA constant current), a generous aluminium heat sink
> (the cooler the LEDs are, the better is the efficiency and the longer they
> live!), thermal adhesive (important to fix the LEDs to the heat sink!) and
> 1W high power LEDs. I suggest to use Cree MX6 emitter + starplate for
> daylight LEDs (6500K), CREE XT-E emitter + starplate for royal blue LEDs
> (450nm) and Cree XP-E emitter + starplate for blue LEDs (470nm).
> Cree are a bit more expensive than other producer, but they have by far the
> best light yield.
> 
> If you have a higher budget, just think about buying from a vendor like
> Zetlight, Aqua Medic or Maxspect.
> Personally I have experience with all three and can tell, that all three
> vendors sell good products.
> Maybe you can directly contact a vendor and ask, if they support your
> research with a donation (that's how I got my Zetlight during my master
> studies).
> 
> Cheers,
> Ruediger
> 
> 
> 2017-05-25 17:58 GMT+02:00 SIVIWE ELVIS <siviweelvis at yahoo.com>:
> 
>> 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
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Coral-List mailing list
>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> Coral-List mailing list
> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list