coraline growth and lighting experiment.

Well would like to start off as this is some findings that I have had with my 75 gal tank. The tank was started 10-19-08 paramiters are as stated
ph 8.4
nitrate none
nitrite none
amonia none
calicum 400
alk 9 dkh
phosphates none detectable

System includes sump with fuge that is a 29 gal long tank. I also run a coral life skimmer 125. Water movement is a 900 gph mag drive pump, yes I know this is low but the point is the lighting not water movement.

So now to the point of the thread. one side of tank is lit with a odyseaa 250 w metal halide 15,000 k with 2 65 w antics the other is lit with a coralife 30 in. t5 unit with one daylight 10,000 k bulb and one antic bulb.

Both lights were purchased around same time. there was probably a months diffrence though.

On the t5 side the coraline growth is showing a very dense pattern of growth and the colors are showing more towards the pink side of the spectrum. This side seems to grow faster.

you can see in above picture on back glass and black over flow the coraline growth.
Coraline growing on over flow seems to grow more intense then on back glass. I wonder if this has to to with just general tempature or with color.

On the MH side the corline growth is more sparce and leans more toward the purple or blue spectrum. Very slow growth.


There is no overflow on this side so it is hard to make a decisive judgement on weather or not color has anything to do with growth or not.

With these findings I am comfortable to say if you want to change your overall look of your coraline then you can do so by lighting.
More growth/ pinker corline = less stong lighting
Less growth/ bluer corline = more strong lighting

Warning: If changing lighting you may experince corline die off and other coraline may need to take its place.

These findings are soly based on my system set ups and parmaiters and if you want simuler results you may have to change many other factors other then just lighting. I hope all find this information usefull thanks for reading.
please post comments on your systems corline growth and questions.

 

I applaud your efforts in figuring things out for yourself.

Many, many years ago it was taught that your refugium had to be located above your display tank and gravity-fed so that pumps wouldn't kill all of the natural food.

That didn't seem right to me so I did an experiment. It turns out that's not a requirement. ;D

 

that's pretty cool that you set it up to actually observe it! karma to you! I myself like the purple coralline. Having the T6's and pc's must be the right combo, cause that's what I got. You never mentioned what your Mg was at.......

 

Very nice man... Good work and don't stop there! Continue this thread, I want to see it a couple more months in!

K+ also

 

I agree...i have mh lamps and i get that blueish coraline

 

I agree with the blue corraline statment to. I havent had my lights on for a month or so now, due to trying to get bulbs and equipment and such. Anyways, Everything on the Rocks died off and without lights and only what came through the windows in the house I have hints of blue corraline popping up everywhere.

 

This completely agrees with the observations in my tank. With 4x65W PCs (2 -10000K, 2 - actinics) I got very rapid coraline growth. Everything was purple. I updated to T5s in December (6 x54W). Since then the coraline has been receding. Some base rock I added in December still has no purple on it. Instead I'm starting to see some gray (or is it blue)? I am also starting to see some orange, brown and green coraline.

 

In my big tank I have MH and T5HO on it. My coraline is growing very fast (too much so for me)...doesnt help that I have to scrape it off the glass very frequently this just releasing it back to the system. However I have all sorts of colors of coraline in my tank! I have purple on the overflow, green coraline on the bottom of the tank and in the seams, and this pink-purple-blue stuff on the actual tank itself. It seems all grows as fast as the others in my tank.

I have to laugh...someone warned me not to wish too hard for coraline..that I would one day regret it! Well that day has come and is long gone!

Interesting experiment that you did!

 

thanks all I am glad you have enjoyed. I will keep up and in a few months take some new pics and state my findings. I also forgot about green corline but it seems that snails and such eat it but leave the blue/pink/purple alone.
The one thing I did forget is that is seems in more turblant areas of the tank the corline seems to grow faster too, but I guess that is another experiment.

 

LOL same here went looking for something to eat the coraline this weekend. Everyone gave me some strange looks when asking what is good to remove coraline.