Enough lighting?

[Russel]

Hello all,

I currently have two different types of zoo's. One of them is the green center with brownish tips, the other i think is a button polyp with a bright orange ring in the center and light green tips.

-do button polyp's not open as wide as the regular zoo's?

If so, i have a few buttons open, but most of them have remained closed for about two weeks. The other zoos are just fine. I have them about 7 in from a single 20w 10k bulb. Is this lighing ok, or do i need an immediate upgrage?

I know that sometimes zoos close up for a period of about 3 weeks for a cleaning, could this be the case?

[Russel]

^

[Russel]

bump

[Nagel]

20w 10k isnt much light. Zoos like VHO much better then NO lighting, and 20w isn't much.

They could be closed for a variety of reasons, but I'll bet the light is definately a contributing factor.

What size tank BTW?

[Flatlander]

Agree with Nagel. Unless its only inches from the bulb.

FWIW, I have never found any of my zoo,s to do well in low lighting. Years ago, we experimented with a huge colony of brown ones. Whenever it was under than less than my 250w Iwasaki, it started dying off. Once in a tank, a 60g Oceanic, lit with 5 Triton bulbs, it almost faded away to no polyps left.:eek2:

Back under halides after my move, it regained its glory. Pic can be seen in an old April/01 TOM. A friend and I have noticed the same results lately, with some other brown species and a large colony of yellow/green polyps.

In a tank with lower light, both colonies were smallish, but under my halides or under his 6 vho bulbs, they flourish.

So In summary, I would say some types, like my browns needed good lighting, others would do ok in less, but not real low, unless they are placed high up, under the lights.

[John N]

I agree with above responses on lighting.
If you truly are only using 20w (and this isn't a typing error), I would definitely say a lighting upgrade would be in order to keep just about any type of corals, including zos.

My tank is a 65g (24" high), and I am currently using 110w of T5's. I keep mostly zos & softies in my tank and can keep them at just about any height in the tank I want, although I do notice that the ones that are in the top 1/2 of the tank DEFINITELY do better than the ones near the bottom.

In your 55g (I think its, I would say that you should probably look to getting an upgrade of lighting to at LEAST around 100w of full spectrum lighting. That 'could' be something like 1-96w PC, 2-55w PC, 2-54w T5's, a combo of NO or VHO lighting, etc, etc, etc....

Just my thoughts...

[Russel]

big mistake,

I should have thought about this before. I have been so concerned about water quality that i didnt even bother to look into lighting. I just assumed that if it was close to the light, it would be enough for the first few weeks. I am going the the LFS right now to get some more lights, I will elaborate a little more on the specs when i get back.

russel