On-going disagreement, need help

[Big Boy69]

I need some help on this discussion that me and 2 of my friends keep discussing.

The discussion has to do with live rock.

From what i gather from 3 different boards, all you need is fluorescent lighting to have beautiful live rock.

My 2 friends keep saying that you need lighting that you would use for reef/corals, (4-5 watts per gallon of water), This is from the person that they deal with, he has, I think 25 years experience.

So what is the deal with having beautiful colored live rock, do you need special lighting or what??????

This is not about saying i was right, you were wrong or anything like that. I just want to know what lighting is best for having beautiful live rock. And what is the minimum lighting needed for Live rock??

[wasp]

What do you mean by beautiful liverock? Covered in coraline algae, or what?

[duec22]

Most coraline algae does not like intense light like from a MH. It prefers shaded areas with lots of current..

[sjvl51]

It depends upon your idea of beautiful. If by beautiful you mean pinks and purples, then lower lighting levels work better. If by beautiful you mean to keep as much life as possible, then treat the rock as if it is in your display tank - great lighting, lots of skimming and water flow, etc.

My system has no lighting, VHO lighting and MH lighting, as well as PC lighting (from Home Depot). With NO lighting (refuge) I am scraping the most, trying to keep the corraline algae off the glass so I can see in. I put any dead (base rock) first in there to be covered by corraline algae. The PC does almost as good of a job. The VHO is next in amount of scraping on the glass required. The MH requires almost no corraline algae removal. Please remember, all these tanks are on one system (use the same sump) so the only difference is lighting and flow.

If you get the rocks covered with corraline algae and then move them to the MH tank, the algae starts to fade with time.

For LR, I would use the lights that you plan on putting over your tank. That way the algae/other life won't have to adjust to a lighting change.

JMO

Vickie

[jdg]

You can get Coraline algae to grow with minimal lights ... VHO and PC would be more than plenty. I would imagine you can get coraline growth with simple NO's too though probably not as quick.

As far as live rock being live ... you don't really need any light for that at all ... :D

[ddenham]

Originally posted by jdg
You can get Coraline algae to grow with minimal lights ... VHO and PC would be more than plenty. I would imagine you can get coraline growth with simple NO's too though probably not as quick.

As far as live rock being live ... you don't really need any light for that at all ... :D

I agree...coralline grows fine fith "less then reef" lighting.

[phenom5]

agree about lighting and coraline, and would add lots of flow is good, as is Ca/ lime water.

[Paaty]

i got much more coraline growth with regular no bulbs, than i do since i upgraded to mh. also i noticed that i was getting dark purple with no and now i seem to be getting more pink and light purple since the upgrade. jme

[Big Boy69]

My term of beautiful live rock is very colorful and a lot of life in the rock.
What do i need?

[ReeferMac]

Most animal based marine life does not require light, so it is not needed at all for that. Varieties of corraline algae exist, some do better under strong lighting than others (I'm going to assume that's part of your "colorful" and "lot of life" part of the definition - unless you wanted caulerpa...)

If you plan to keep light-loving corals in the tank, than I'd suggest you try to culture light-loving varieties of corraline algae. To do so, you need to provide the tank w/ lots of light. You should light your LR w/ the same kind of lighting you plan on using on your reef... as that's where it wil eventually end up, no?

Can one grow corraline algae under less-than-MH lighting? Yes
Will that same corraline algae DIE when you put it under MH lighting? Yes.

- Mac

[phenom5]

My term of beautiful live rock is very colorful and a lot of life in the rock.
What do i need?

some light, lots of flow, and rock from lots of different sources...

[jdg]

Less intense sources will provide the darker deeper colors while more intense light sources will provide lighter, less-intense coloration of the rock. As far as life on the rock, it depends on what kind of life you are referring too. Bacterial life requires no light (much of it is inside the rock itself). Plant life would require a little more light. Soft corals more than that, and hard corals even more.

If by life you're referring to pods and worms and things of that nature then you could probably get away with NO ime.

[Big Boy69]

Thanks for all your information.

[mthedude]

LR definately does better under less intense lights if your goal is coraline algae coverage. I'd say the suggestions above would be awesome if you had the time and space to keep them under NO or PC lighting for a few months in a tank with intense water movement and high calcium/alkalinity, then move them to your display tank where the coraline would eventually retreat from the high light/low flow areas. That's why if you go into the ocean you'll see most of the coraline grows on the under side of rocks.