Acan secrets

[redtop03]

My vote for low light. I had mine 26" under 250w MH in lumenbright reflectors initially and their color did not start getting deeper until I moved them down to about 38" under the bulbs.

I have also spot fed and do dose Strontium. I think both of those help with color and growth, but low light makes the biggest impact on the color of acans.

same wattage and reflectors as I have,my sunkist acans seem to like the bright light(nearly doubling in size from just T5) but they are low in the tank,over 40" from the bulbs...they seem to love Brightwell ZooPlanktos too...but I'm new at the acan game and have only had these for a short while,I'm still learning...

thanks everybody that's replied here,I know reeftank asked the questions but y'all are helping me too :D

 

[berghia_R_awesome]

I've had one colony of acans never fully inflate for the past year. I have many other acan colonies that are doing great. Just yesterday I changed the flow a bit and the deflated acan colony showed more tissue expansion than the whole past year. After the sudden positive change, I realized they are in a spot of lowest flow in my tank.

I vote for increasing flow, but I'm now intrigued with the strontium concept. I'm going to have to give that a try and see how things react in general. Too bad we don't have better test kits to measure sr levels.

I agree with the low light as well.

J

 

[Tabasco1]

redtop03... would those Sunkist be the ones from Aquaworld you just got ;) lucky dog!

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

i think feeding is the biggest factor in making your acans puff out a lot. target feeding and using amino acids is the ticket. i think the low light 'trick' for getting your polyps to extend is not necessarily the best thing for your acans. they extend their polyps in low light because they are stretching to get more light. i believe some acans like higher light more than low light. some will not grow at all under low light and some will lose colors under lower light ime. if you really want bigger polyps it seems to me like you would want to fatten up your acans. giving them more light and more food will give them more energy. the more energy they accumulate the fatter they will get. im not saying low light isnt always the best for colors that is a diff story