Coral lighting

[jahel318]

How many hours per day would you suggest for birdnest coral (guttatus), frogspawn, and zoanthids? I currently have my timer at 8 hours of daylight &actinic (Marineland Reef Capable LED's) and 3 hours of moonlight once daylights go off. All of my corals have been on the sandbed over the last 2 weeks in a tank that is 25" deep to slowly acclimate them to the lighting. All corals are doing well except the birdnest which has bleached almost entirely. My temp is 79 and SG is at 1.024. All other params within normal range.

1. Should I increase daylight hours and if so to how much? ( I set it to 8 due to algae outbreaks)
2. Should I implement actinic lighting a couple hours before daylights kick in?
3. How many hours should actinics be on after daylights go off?

 

[Marinne13]

I run my actinics an hour before my daylights and an hour after, 8 hours in total for the day and my moons are on all night...first I would slowly bump your salinity up to at least 1.025-1.026

the bleaching of the birds nest might not have anything to do with lighting, they need high water quality and very stable parameters so with that said here are some questions

what are all your water params to include alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, nitrate...also how much wattage is your light and what kind of bulbs are you running?? how old are the bulbs??

how old is your tank and what's the total volume of water?

 

[emmett0122]

+1 to marinne on the salinity and i have t5 ho i run 2 hr blue plus and antinic then the coral plus and purple plus for 8 hrs(all 4 bulbs are on) then back to the blue + and antinic then the rest of the time is moon lights

 

[jahel318]

The Marineland reef capable LED's are approx 3 months old....bought them brand new. The total wattage is 21 watts (1305 lumens) and there are 18 white LED's (@10,000K) and 3 blue LED's (@460nm). My tank is 4 yrs old and 44 gallons. I will make another check on all my params today when I get back home.

 

[emmett0122]

check all you parameters ammonia, ph, nitrite, nitrate, cal. mag. and alk.

 

[Marinne13]

so you have LED's...my bad, never used the marineland leds so not sure how good they are for SPS

we need your other parameters

 

[Aquarian]

The marineland reef capable LEDs are great for LPS and softies, but they are not enough ( on their own ) for SPS

+1 on the water parameters and salinity

Birds nest require high light and high flow. So you need to move it as high as possible and in high current.

 

[mariobrothersleeve]

They will support birds nest just fine.... keep them high in your tank and they will be ok. Birds nest is an sps but considered beginner corals. Ie very easy to take care of and able to survive not normal conditions. Post some pictures, bleaching is normal close to the base when they get bigger do to how they grow and shade the base

 

[jahel318]

Here's a pic