Ok, so, this is not typical "how to", or "what should i do" question, rather conversation, opinions and thoughts about something that's puzzling me for some time....
Daily we see topic and post that sound like "i bought new fancy coral, so, i put it in tank, and then i reduce my lights, to avoid shocking corals, then i will during days/weeks slowly raising light intensity"....
I'm i only one whom this sounds soooo wrong?
I mean, we try to acclimatize coral to light, not light to coral, right?
The only two scenarios exist, ok, three, but last is so obvious and don't require any actions from us, so, let's go with two options here...
A) coral was grown in stronger light than we have
B) coral was grown in weaker light than we have
So, if it's A, then, really, we don't need to do anything. Right? Coral will receive less lights, simply place it in tank, wait some time and voila.... It will not be happy few days, but then it will accept that light level, and all ok... Not really, we already accepted fact that any change in light intensity/spectrum is a stress to corals, that's why everyone says "set your light and forget, don't change constantly".
If answer is B, then we need to acclimatize coral. So, why is "reduce light intensity" often only recommended action?
By doing that, we lower our light intensity to better suit NEW coral in system, and thus shocking all of corals that we already have, and, again, we already established that this is not good option.
So, why? Why simply don't place new coral on sand, or somewhere in shade, under shelf, cliff, under shade of some other coral that we have? No matter how strong lighting we have, there's always some places that receive lower par than the rest.
Why it's always "reduce light intensity"?
Personally, i don't touch my light, when adding new coral, its always - sandbed, partially in shade, then upwards on scape until final place.... Never fails.
Only exception is if i know for fact that corals was kept in much stronger lights than i possibly can have, then it goes straight on place where i want him.
Is there wrong or right way, why touching lights intensity that affect whole system sounds like bad idea to me?
Daily we see topic and post that sound like "i bought new fancy coral, so, i put it in tank, and then i reduce my lights, to avoid shocking corals, then i will during days/weeks slowly raising light intensity"....
I'm i only one whom this sounds soooo wrong?
I mean, we try to acclimatize coral to light, not light to coral, right?
The only two scenarios exist, ok, three, but last is so obvious and don't require any actions from us, so, let's go with two options here...
A) coral was grown in stronger light than we have
B) coral was grown in weaker light than we have
So, if it's A, then, really, we don't need to do anything. Right? Coral will receive less lights, simply place it in tank, wait some time and voila.... It will not be happy few days, but then it will accept that light level, and all ok... Not really, we already accepted fact that any change in light intensity/spectrum is a stress to corals, that's why everyone says "set your light and forget, don't change constantly".
If answer is B, then we need to acclimatize coral. So, why is "reduce light intensity" often only recommended action?
By doing that, we lower our light intensity to better suit NEW coral in system, and thus shocking all of corals that we already have, and, again, we already established that this is not good option.
So, why? Why simply don't place new coral on sand, or somewhere in shade, under shelf, cliff, under shade of some other coral that we have? No matter how strong lighting we have, there's always some places that receive lower par than the rest.
Why it's always "reduce light intensity"?
Personally, i don't touch my light, when adding new coral, its always - sandbed, partially in shade, then upwards on scape until final place.... Never fails.
Only exception is if i know for fact that corals was kept in much stronger lights than i possibly can have, then it goes straight on place where i want him.
Is there wrong or right way, why touching lights intensity that affect whole system sounds like bad idea to me?