What is your favorite low light coral?

Reef n' Madness · #1 09/26/2007, 10:27 PM

I have a couple of great spots for some low light corals but I don't know what to get. Does anyone have suggestions?

Justin74 · #2 09/26/2007, 11:52 PM

What's the flow like in the section your talking about? I have a couple ideas but flow would be a deciding factor.

-Justin

Reef n' Madness · #3 09/27/2007, 12:13 AM

I have two spots right now. One has a little more flow than the other but both are fairly moderate to high flow.

Marko9 · #4 09/27/2007, 09:26 AM

Duncans and sun corals are fine in low light ares.

kevin95695 · #5 09/27/2007, 09:32 AM

Are you willing to target feed?

Marko9 · #6 09/27/2007, 09:34 AM

Great point

Reef n' Madness · #7 09/27/2007, 10:05 AM

I am willing to target feed.

edsimmons · #8 09/27/2007, 10:18 AM

I agree w/ mark.

Duncans are nice but........expensive!

but they grow fast if you feed'em.

edsimmons · #9 09/27/2007, 10:18 AM

I agree w/ mark.

Duncans are nice but........expensive!

but they grow fast if you feed'em.

tfp · #10 09/27/2007, 10:23 AM

you could always give yuma a shot...

Wee-Reef Master · #11 09/27/2007, 11:21 AM

Tim,

I was going to say Yumas as well.

bladeruner143 · #12 09/27/2007, 12:45 PM

What is considered "low light?" and what is considered "moderate" flow?

Justin74 · #13 09/27/2007, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Reef n' Madness
I have two spots right now. One has a little more flow than the other but both are fairly moderate to high flow.

Your moderate/high flow low light area would be good for duncans, suncoral, many different favia, leptastrea(my favorite), acanthastrea echinata, echinopora, quite a few echinophyllia, mycedium to name a few

Low flow and light=Blastomussa wellsi, some echinophyllia, bubble coral although not too little light, various acanthastrea although lordhowensis like moderate light.

-Justin

Justin74 · #14 09/27/2007, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by bladeruner143
What is considered "low light?" and what is considered "moderate" flow?

It's all open to interpretation, but generally speaking would be the bottom third of the tank. Which doesnt mean a hill of beans if your blasting a 250w MH over a 10g I know, so it's a very generic way but describing and assumes we are talking about intense lighting. If this tank was a 100g with normal flourescents, Id say dont put any corals on the bottom third of the tank unless they dont need much to any useable light. It's all relative.

Another good tip would be to seek out tanks that run similar lighting and see and read about what their successfully keeping along with the pumps their using for flow and cross reference it to your system and equipment.

-Justin

Reef n' Madness · #15 09/27/2007, 01:39 PM

thanks for the ideas Justin!

airinhere · #16 09/27/2007, 01:53 PM

What about good old Zoanthids? Or just about any kind of Mushroom out there?

Bladerunner has a good question as well. Personally, I would consider low light to be deeper than 24 inches under 250W halides, deeper than 18 inches under T-5 or deeper than 12 inches under PC lights. (Or pushing less than 3 watts per gallon. Outdated idea, but it still has some usefulness.)

Medium light would be anything deeper than 12 inches under 250W halide, under 10 inches deep under T-5 or above 12inches deep under PC. (PC can only hit med lighting.)

High light would be anything in the top 8 inches for a 250W halide or the top 6 inches for T-5.

I would consider low flow to be anything less than 15X turnover rate in a tank.

Med flow would be up to 40X turnover and

high flow would be anything above that.
(There is also Ludicrous flow at 100X turnover and above.)

Anybody else have insight into these frequently used terms and what they might really mean?

*Measurements are not meant to be read as exact figures, but general guidelines for estimation.

bladeruner143 · #17 09/27/2007, 02:27 PM

Thanks Airinhere. That actually helps out a lot! I'm just trying to plan for the future (hopefully) to find out how much lighting I would need

bored4long · #18 09/27/2007, 02:45 PM

Airinhere, would your lighting intensity assessment hold for VHO T5s? Would 54watt bulbs overdriven by a 660 to 80 watts still only be considered high light in the top 6 inches of water? Thanks.

FunGuy · #19 09/27/2007, 03:51 PM

Xenia IF it pulses, frogspawn and zoanthids/palys are my favorites.

airinhere · #20 09/27/2007, 05:34 PM

Bored4Long, my opinion of the lighting rigs is based off a four foot fixture with:
2 X250W halide or
4X65 CF fixtures or
a six (or eight) bulb t-5 system. VHO, overdriven lights, etc are all upgrades to be considered when estimating your tanks lighting capabilities.

Case in point, I have dual SE 250W halides over my two reef tanks. My rockwork extends all the way out of the top of the water. I have Duncans in less than 3 inches of water and also at the very bottom on the sandbed (24 inches deep). I would consider the ones at the bottom of my tank to be in low lighting, bordering on medium light. The ones at the surface are in a very high light area. Both are doing well. (But the ones at the surface are easily three times larger polyps than the ones at the bottom of my tank).

I also have 2 Koralia #4 (2400gph total) with another 600gph from my return. 3000 GPH for each tank overall. Divided by 90 gallons for my display tank equals: 33X turnover rate for my tank. So I have Medium flow in my tank. (But on the high end as far as medium flow goes.) I keep mostly acans, chalices, zoos and duncans. So everything is doing great.

I plan to start keeping SPS in the near future, so I will likely add another Koralia #4 so make my flow rate 46X turnover. Then I would have high flow.

I also will add a pair of 110W VHO bulbs to my lighting system when I do the switch to SPS. That should "double up" my lighting and create a high light area that goes much deeper, and would get rid of any 'low light' areas at the bottom of my tank.

bored4long · #21 09/27/2007, 06:26 PM

ok, thanks for the reply. Just trying to gauge what I can do with my T5 lighting on my 24" deep tank.

Quote:

Originally posted by FunGuy
Xenia IF it pulses, frogspawn and zoanthids/palys are my favorites.

Is there anyway to guarantee a colony of Xenia will pulse? Is this dependent on the system it is in or the colony's health? Or is it more of a genetics/species thing? Thanks for helping a coral newb out.