montipora capricornis

[timone321]

howdy,

i have a 75g reef tank that has been up for a year now. i run 4-36" VHO's and keep LPS and softies. the only real SPS ive been interested in is montipora capricornis. ive been doing some reading and most say that it requires moderate lighting and can actually thrive under VHO's. does anyone have experience with this? i dont what to get metal halides because of the cost and temp.

any help would be appreciated!

thanks

[wastwage]

Keep them up high and you will be ok

[ddresch]

Mine is doing extremely well under VHO. I have an orange montipora capricornis, and it's retained it's color, or even improved. It's near the top, and it grows around 1 cm in each direction, each month. I've had it wince Nov, and absolutely love the coral.

My tank is a 75, like yours, and I have mostly softies, with a few sps, and the montipora capricornis is by far the best looking and fastest growing sps in my tank.

[kenny77]

how many watt you have. also are they close to teh water?

I had SPS, LPS, softies polys in my tank. the SPS did great in my tank. teh only problem I had was with all montiporas digitatas. they all turned dark purple and brown. but acros didn't they had ther brigth color. the problem was that the bulb were more than 6 month all.

[ddresch]

I just changed two of the bulbs this month, but before that, I had 4 36" VHO bulbs, each about 2 years old. The monti is around 6" below the water surface, and only 8" from the ends of the bulb. I run 2 03 actinics and to 50/50 bulbs, and add strontium and iodine weekly. The bulbs are around 5" from the water surface.

I also have a small monti digitata frag, brown with purple tips. It's doing well, and the it's getting more purple with the new bulbs. The other monti cap, green with purple edges, is a recent addition, and is not growing as fast as the orange m. cap, but has nice polyp extension.

I'll try and upload photos (current and old) later this week.

David Dresch