Been frying my corals because of this!

[revhtree]

the boss dishing out work on a Holiday..Geeze
@pelphrey just did a video using his seneye

HAHA! Thanks for the vid!

 

[Luno]

Yep, anything over that can send them into photo inhibition. In other words, they shut down when receiving too much intensity, stop producing sugars that feed the zooxanthellae in their tissue. Essentially stop growing till the intensity is reduced. Midday sun, they shut down.

Watch the video and you'll see.

I will have to watch the video more in depth I flicked through it a bit. I don't want to come off as rude or disrespectful because this guy in the video is clearly well known. I don't follow many big names in reefing hell I only know Randy's name because ive always used Randy's recipe haha!

I have ran sps acros at near 700 par and they produced some of the best colours yet, corals thrive in varying light in the wild. most of the time in the last 10 years the talk on sps is high par 350-400 plus. I can respect his conclusions and scientific methodology to do this, but I come from medicine, and in medicine one study or one trial means not much. It needs to be proven repetitively to ring true. It's an interesting thought and outcome from his study though and worth looking into more, and reefers like yourself experimenting with the lesser par.

On the flow side of things i think we under value that a lot, I think that's definitely on the money from my experience both in a tank and in the wild.

 

[rkpetersen]

I have the Apogee MQ-510, redesigned to correct the issue BRS raised concerning multiple PAR meters, including a professional one, in one of their videos. I can confirm that the immersion effect correction now takes place as it should, and it supposedly is also tuned to work well with LED lighting. However, I haven't tested it against any other PAR meters. With the optional wand, it's super easy to position the sensor at multiple locations in your tank, tap a button to record the reading, and move on to the next location. I take 3 readings at each location and take an average. If you mentally keep track or even better make a list of locations beforehand, you can easily review all the data later and put together a PAR map of your layout. Last time I did a PAR map in my mixed reef was just after adding 4 T5s to my LEDs. Huge boost. When the T5s are on midday, PAR at the top center of the tank, adjacent to some happy acros, is around 550 PAR. In the sand at either left or right front corner, it's about 200. Sometimes even this is too much for new additions, I'll have to either put them under a overhang, or shield them with a piece of cut cardboard placed on the aquarium lid.

 

[DancingShark]

Yep, anything over that can send them into photo inhibition. In other words, they shut down when receiving too much intensity, stop producing sugars that feed the zooxanthellae in their tissue. Essentially stop growing till the intensity is reduced. Midday sun, they shut down.

Watch the video and you'll see.

I will have to watch the video more in depth I flicked through it a bit. I don't want to come off as rude or disrespectful because this guy in the video is clearly well known. I don't follow many big names in reefing hell I only know Randy's name because ive always used Randy's recipe haha!

I have ran sps acros at near 700 par and they produced some of the best colours yet, corals thrive in varying light in the wild. most of the time in the last 10 years the talk on sps is high par 350-400 plus. I can respect his conclusions and scientific methodology to do this, but I come from medicine, and in medicine one study or one trial means not much. It needs to be proven repetitively to ring true. It's an interesting thought and outcome from his study though and worth looking into more, and reefers like yourself experimenting with the lesser par.

On the flow side of things i think we under value that a lot, I think that's definitely on the money from my experience both in a tank and in the wild.

It starts at 8:40 in the video. He does say this experiment applies to this type of coral.

 

[Luno]

I guess what I'm trying to say is blanketing this exact within 50par range is best for "sps" or best for "lps" is way to narrow for such a broad amount of corals. And trying to maintain a very small spread in a tank is in my mind not the best. In a mixed reef different corals will like more light, less light, more flow and less flow. Which is what most of the time we try to create, It's just to hard with even say the varying requires from different acropora to say this. And while it may be able to be done with one study with certain corals and certain factors that's still quiet narrow a field and one study to conclude it to be complete fact

 

[Crabs McJones]

When you say blanket of par, do you mean your tank sits blanketed between those two numbers? That's a fairly close spread I'm impressed! Does your rock structure had many high points??



200-250 seems a bit low doesn't it? I'll assume that's in the presentation that you linked. I couldn't imagine the best comes from sps so low, but hey I'll be interested in new thoughts and the read!

Yes, no matter where in my tank I put my meter, it's around 250 at the bottom, and 350 a little above where ally sps sit. And right where my sps are gets about 280-320 par my rockwork is pretty flat with not alot of high points.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Yes! You have the dynamic photoinhibition concept down pat! Thank you!

Yep, anything over that can send them into photo inhibition. In other words, they shut down when receiving too much intensity, stop producing sugars that feed the zooxanthellae in their tissue. Essentially stop growing till the intensity is reduced. Midday sun, they shut down.

Watch the video and you'll see.

 

[jda]

I also have an Apogee 510 and find it very helpful with my acropora.

Other than the assessment that we probably cannot over light Tridacna, I find the recommendations in the 2006 MACNA presentation to be extremely light. Nearly every acro on that list does better with more light than what is says, IME. I think that you are going to find in time that quality matters too... some light might need to be kept low with lower quality whereas coral will respond in a good way to more higher quality light.

Back to just PAR... with each sensor and piece of equipment being different, it is important to note which type you are using so that well-thought hobbyists can do the figuring and calculation if they so desire. I try and post that I use an Apogee 510, but I probably forget a bunch too.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Yes! You have the dynamic photoinhibition concept down pat! Thank you!

Learned that from you my friend!

 

[Dana Riddle]

Cut and paste from one of my articles:
Table 1. Compensation, Saturation, and Photoinhibition Points for Various Marine Invertebrates. All numerical values are microMol per square meter per second (µmol∙m²∙sec) and easily measured by PAR meters.
Host Compensation Saturation Photoinhibition Depth
Acropora cervicornis n/a 281 n/a 17m
Acropora cervicornis n/a 331 n/a 17m
Acropora digitifera 82 387 n/a 1m
Acropora divaricata 10 77 n/a 40m
Acropora formosa 170 340 n/a 1m
Acropora gemmifera 270 340 n/a 1m
Acropora granulosa 53 102 n/a 40m
Acropora microphthalma n/a 300 n/a n/a
Acropora millepora n/a 190 n/a <2m
Acropora millepora n/a 230 n/a <2m
Acropora nobilis n/a 310 n/a <2m
Acropora nobilis n/a 180 n/a <2m
Anthopleura elegantissima 73 n/a n/a n/a
Montipora capitata n/a 135 250 n/a
Montipora tuberculosa n/a 180 n/a <2m
Montipora tuberculosa n/a 300 n/a <2m
Pavona varians n/a 110 350 n/a
Pocillopora damicornis n/a 225 n/a <2m
Pocillopora eydouxi n/a 323 n/a n/a
Porites cylindrica n/a 200 n/a n/a
Porites lobata n/a 250 350 n/a
Porites lutea n/a 400 750 1.5m
Sinularia densa n/a ~207 n/a n/a
Stylophora pistillata 40 200 n/a n/a
Stylophora pistillata n/a 300 600 n/a
Tridacna maxima n/a >600 >1,900 n/a

 

[Dana Riddle]

I will have to watch the video more in depth I flicked through it a bit. I don't want to come off as rude or disrespectful because this guy in the video is clearly well known. I don't follow many big names in reefing hell I only know Randy's name because ive always used Randy's recipe haha!

I have ran sps acros at near 700 par and they produced some of the best colours yet, corals thrive in varying light in the wild. most of the time in the last 10 years the talk on sps is high par 350-400 plus. I can respect his conclusions and scientific methodology to do this, but I come from medicine, and in medicine one study or one trial means not much. It needs to be proven repetitively to ring true. It's an interesting thought and outcome from his study though and worth looking into more, and reefers like yourself experimenting with the lesser par.

On the flow side of things i think we under value that a lot, I think that's definitely on the money from my experience both in a tank and in the wild.

Colorful corals are often photo-inhibited. When I managed one of the first commercial coral farms in the late 90's, we were under the belief that zoox clades were infinitely adaptable to light intensities (at least to natural levels.) We grew some beautiful corals just inches below Iwasaki 400w daylight lamps at intensities approaching PPFD values of 800-900. Great color and slow growth.
The results presented in the MACNA presentation were from trials repeated 3 times, but only for Porites lobata. I posted a list of compensation/saturation/photoinhibition points garnered from peer-reviewed literature a few minutes ago in this thread. As for myself, I never found a saturation point exceeding perhaps 500 micromole/m2/sec in any shallow water Hawaiian corals (collected at 1 meter depth or so.) Tridacna clams are different and can tolerate high light with no signs of saturation, much less photoinhibition.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Colorful corals are often photo-inhibited. When I managed one of the first commercial coral farms in the late 90's, we were under the belief that zoox clades were infinitely adaptable to light intensities (at least to natural levels.) We grew some beautiful corals just inches below Iwasaki 400w daylight lamps at intensities approaching PPFD values of 800-900. Great color and slow growth.
The results presented in the MACNA presentation were from trials repeated 3 times, but only for Porites lobata. I posted a list of compensation/saturation/photoinhibition points garnered from peer-reviewed literature a few minutes ago in this thread. As for myself, I never found a saturation point exceeding perhaps 500 micromole/m2/sec in any shallow water Hawaiian corals (collected at 1 meter depth or so.) Tridacna clams are different and can tolerate high light with no signs of saturation, much less photoinhibition.

Since I learned this, I adjusted my par values lower and have excellent growth and decent color. Before little growth and decent color. I'm a believer!

 

[Servillius]

Colorful corals are often photo-inhibited. When I managed one of the first commercial coral farms in the late 90's, we were under the belief that zoox clades were infinitely adaptable to light intensities (at least to natural levels.) We grew some beautiful corals just inches below Iwasaki 400w daylight lamps at intensities approaching PPFD values of 800-900. Great color and slow growth.
The results presented in the MACNA presentation were from trials repeated 3 times, but only for Porites lobata. I posted a list of compensation/saturation/photoinhibition points garnered from peer-reviewed literature a few minutes ago in this thread. As for myself, I never found a saturation point exceeding perhaps 500 micromole/m2/sec in any shallow water Hawaiian corals (collected at 1 meter depth or so.) Tridacna clams are different and can tolerate high light with no signs of saturation, much less photoinhibition.

I feel like the problem is people are turning this information into dogma, but not before bowlderizing it a bit. I’m sure you’ve made the point many times, but the saturation point is not the point where growth stops as the poor coral succumbs to that last, unbearable photon. That seems to be the interpretation some folks are giving to the information however.

The information you’ve provided is amazingly helpful and informative. It’s helped me tremendously in adjusting my lights. I do wish folks would stop interpreting as an injunction that 350 par is going to kill your tank.

P.s. I do have related question. Acros that are all grown up do a lot of shading of the branches below them. Has anyone tested to see at what PAR the colony is happiest? That number could be quite a bit higher than the number at which any given polyp is happy and it might even have something to do with acros evolutionary success; using branching to control both light and flow to the colony.

 

[NY_Caveman]

I will have to watch the video more in depth I flicked through it a bit. I don't want to come off as rude or disrespectful because this guy in the video is clearly well known. I don't follow many big names in reefing hell I only know Randy's name because ive always used Randy's recipe haha!

I have ran sps acros at near 700 par and they produced some of the best colours yet, corals thrive in varying light in the wild. most of the time in the last 10 years the talk on sps is high par 350-400 plus. I can respect his conclusions and scientific methodology to do this, but I come from medicine, and in medicine one study or one trial means not much. It needs to be proven repetitively to ring true. It's an interesting thought and outcome from his study though and worth looking into more, and reefers like yourself experimenting with the lesser par.

On the flow side of things i think we under value that a lot, I think that's definitely on the money from my experience both in a tank and in the wild.

@Luno you mentioned you ran as high as 700 PAR. I am curious how high your Alkalinity was? I am guessing it was high. Was it strong flow, high nutrients as well? Overall I suppose I am interested if those with success running higher PAR also run other parameters high as well as I would expect. Thanks

EDIT: BTW, I use Seneye.

 

[Greenstreet.1]

Following have catch up later.

 

[leepink23]

I use the seneye but don’t have anything to compare it to. It’s been nice to help dial in Par, before I was getting 150-180s now after adjusting the lights I get 220-250s. My sps appear to respond well to the increased Par with faster growth.

 

[Sunny Goold]

Cut and paste from one of my articles:
Table 1. Compensation, Saturation, and Photoinhibition Points for Various Marine Invertebrates. All numerical values are microMol per square meter per second (µmol∙m²∙sec) and easily measured by PAR meters.
Host Compensation Saturation Photoinhibition Depth
Acropora cervicornis n/a 281 n/a 17m
Acropora cervicornis n/a 331 n/a 17m
Acropora digitifera 82 387 n/a 1m
Acropora divaricata 10 77 n/a 40m
Acropora formosa 170 340 n/a 1m
Acropora gemmifera 270 340 n/a 1m
Acropora granulosa 53 102 n/a 40m
Acropora microphthalma n/a 300 n/a n/a
Acropora millepora n/a 190 n/a <2m
Acropora millepora n/a 230 n/a <2m
Acropora nobilis n/a 310 n/a <2m
Acropora nobilis n/a 180 n/a <2m
Anthopleura elegantissima 73 n/a n/a n/a
Montipora capitata n/a 135 250 n/a
Montipora tuberculosa n/a 180 n/a <2m
Montipora tuberculosa n/a 300 n/a <2m
Pavona varians n/a 110 350 n/a
Pocillopora damicornis n/a 225 n/a <2m
Pocillopora eydouxi n/a 323 n/a n/a
Porites cylindrica n/a 200 n/a n/a
Porites lobata n/a 250 350 n/a
Porites lutea n/a 400 750 1.5m
Sinularia densa n/a ~207 n/a n/a
Stylophora pistillata 40 200 n/a n/a
Stylophora pistillata n/a 300 600 n/a
Tridacna maxima n/a >600 >1,900 n/a

This is just an amazing resource - thanks Dana!
Until we get more numbers I'm going to use this as a reference. The presentation (I have watched it a couple of times) is amazing. I remember the curve seemed to spend a little time at the top before growth really slowed so I can understand people saying they get higher colors at higher par.

I know it has been touched on here but Dana's presentation REALLY emphasized the combo of Light, Alk and Flow.

There's another a different presentation where the Prof said (from memory) that different colonies of the same species can have different species of zooxanthellae - some of which are more sensitive to temperature (from memory) and so I am guessing that may apply to light also.
Here's the presentation:
In Dana's presentation he showed 2 of the same specifies - 1 small colony in the lagoon and one HUGE one in deep water. In this Profs presentation he was studying and comparing the same species one also in deep water, one in shallower and talked about them having different zooxanthellae - Then he talked about seeing growth rates being higher with the zoox that are more sensitive to light. If anyone knows where I can find the results of his findings can you reply here with the link

For me what I have learned from Dana's presentation is that reefers probably often use too much light and that if you want to maximise growth (and coral health) less light (well aiming for the numbers Dana has posted) is probably useful. If you are focusing on color it may be a different story. Then there is the whole thing about spectrum (which may be a factor in perfect Par) and I think I heard corals in higher nutrient systems may be able to handle higher Par (until I see some science on it I will ignore that).

So much to learn but I think as more people use Par meters and post results that we will get a better understanding.
@revhtree It would be great if there was a post focused on this - like Species, reefing name and PAR they grow under - and some observations it may turn into a super valuable resource. It would be great if Coral sellers also did this.

 

[Dana Riddle]

I feel like the problem is people are turning this information into dogma, but not before bowlderizing it a bit. I’m sure you’ve made the point many times, but the saturation point is not the point where growth stops as the poor coral succumbs to that last, unbearable photon. That seems to be the interpretation some folks are giving to the information however.

The information you’ve provided is amazingly helpful and informative. It’s helped me tremendously in adjusting my lights. I do wish folks would stop interpreting as an injunction that 350 par is going to kill your tank.

P.s. I do have related question. Acros that are all grown up do a lot of shading of the branches below them. Has anyone tested to see at what PAR the colony is happiest? That number could be quite a bit higher than the number at which any given polyp is happy and it might even have something to do with acros evolutionary success; using branching to control both light and flow to the colony.

You are quite correct - damage is likely minimal at the photo-saturation point, and probably so at point of dynamic photoinhibition. It most definitely hurts the corals at chronic photoinhibition. But knowing the point of saturation is useful in that it minimizes power consumption (lighting, cooling costs.) As for your question - self-shading in branching corals is a fact of life. It is not surprising that most branching corals contain 'C' clade zooxanthellate which are known to be remarkably adaptable to varying light fields. If we look at the compensation points (above) we see that the minimal amount of light required is low. But then, there is the danger that that could be interpreted to mean that, say, Acroporas can survive at a PPFD of 20 as an example. The metabolites produced by those zoox exposed to high light are shared with those in low light, if we believe diffusion gradients exist. My 2 cents worth.

 

[Dana Riddle]

Just a quick note - LaJeunesse has done terrific work and has been a source of valuable information to me and many others. The corals I examined (in the case of the MACNA presentation) were Porites lobata. LaJeunesse found this species invariably contains Clade C15 at all depths, and is the fidelity remains even when in an aquarium with corals containing other clades (LaJeunesse and Smith.)
Thank you for the compliment. It took a year to generate the information in that presentation and there were many days I wanted to be anywhere other than a darkened lab. Hawaii has way too many distractions!

This is just an amazing resource - thanks Dana!
Until we get more numbers I'm going to use this as a reference. The presentation (I have watched it a couple of times) is amazing. I remember the curve seemed to spend a little time at the top before growth really slowed so I can understand people saying they get higher colors at higher par.

I know it has been touched on here but Dana's presentation REALLY emphasized the combo of Light, Alk and Flow.

There's another a different presentation where the Prof said (from memory) that different colonies of the same species can have different species of zooxanthellae - some of which are more sensitive to temperature (from memory) and so I am guessing that may apply to light also.
Here's the presentation:
In Dana's presentation he showed 2 of the same specifies - 1 small colony in the lagoon and one HUGE one in deep water. In this Profs presentation he was studying and comparing the same species one also in deep water, one in shallower and talked about them having different zooxanthellae - Then he talked about seeing growth rates being higher with the zoox that are more sensitive to light. If anyone knows where I can find the results of his findings can you reply here with the link

For me what I have learned from Dana's presentation is that reefers probably often use too much light and that if you want to maximise growth (and coral health) less light (well aiming for the numbers Dana has posted) is probably useful. If you are focusing on color it may be a different story. Then there is the whole thing about spectrum (which may be a factor in perfect Par) and I think I heard corals in higher nutrient systems may be able to handle higher Par (until I see some science on it I will ignore that).

So much to learn but I think as more people use Par meters and post results that we will get a better understanding.
@revhtree It would be great if there was a post focused on this - like Species, reefing name and PAR they grow under - and some observations it may turn into a super valuable resource. It would be great if Coral sellers also did this.

 

[Flippers4pups]

" I do wish folks would stop interpreting as an injunction that 350 par is going to kill your tank."

In all due respect, I don't believe anyone here has implied that as fact. Actually there are plenty of others that can run extremely high par values and have on problem growing very colorful corals.

There is, on the other hand, have been uncountless threads that I've responded to here on reef2reef with reefers that have posted bleached or severe color fading due to high par levels north of 400+. As a side note, they almost all have near zero nutrients and higher alkalinity levels. Recipe for disaster.

The other hand is examples like Dr. Sanjay Joshi that can get away with par values around 1400! He can do this because his tank runs at that level for a short time, plus nutrients are sky high with extreme water flow.

Everyone's tank and inhabitants are different. For me, lower to Dana's findings work very well for me.