Yes, I am thinking to add something blue in the LPS section.
My thoughts exactly.
Poor =natural ?
Blasted no .
Yes of course sunlight is natural. Sunlight in 12 inches of water however is much different than sunlight in 30ft or more of water is my point. If you are trying to mimic what the natural light environment then a foot or two of water and sunlight is not doing it for most corals.
Solar tubes have no corrosion issues as they are sealed. Secondly the entire tube is mirrored inside, so the sun light is collected, from all sides, funneled down the tube and exits on the inside of the house. I have 12 on my roof currently. They even pick up moon light and glow purple. One downside is if a car goes buy they pick up the headlights and direct that light into the room, also stormy nights the lightning looks like a flash on your cell phone going off all night.
Yeah, the LPS, SPS designations are nonsensical and frustrating. It literally makes as much sense as planning ones vegetable garden based on leaf size.Obtuse -
a: lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect.
b: difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression
Well, I've been called a lot worse.
You're right though, the corals we keep for the most part are collected, in the case of wild corals, or grown, in the case of maricultured corals, at much deeper levels than at the surface. But that's as true for so called SPS as the so called LPS as well as the so called "Softies" Using these terms to collectively denote environmental and nutritional requirements for species that in some cases may not even be found in the same conditions in the wild and may be more distantly related than cats and dogs can only result in unneccessary death of animals and frustration on the part of aquarists. Reffering back to the OP as an example of how this misunderstanding could kill coral as there are certainly so called "SPS" that would die if placed in sunlight even at lower light intensity levels.
Instead of sticking with decades old dogma we need to be looking at the research showing there can be significant differences between sibling species within a genus as well as between genotypes within a species. We also need to be sensitive to research showing how the microbial processes in our systems influence the health of our animals. Veron's work shows there are species with in a genus that may be very cosmopolitan, found in a wide variety of reef environments, and sibling species that are found only in very localized ecological niches . Research also shows the animals we keep can influence the microbial populations n the water around them and the immune systems can vary significantly between genotypes of a species.
Here's some examples: Flower Pot corals have been a major frustration for aquarists for as long as I've been keeping reef systems, some aquarists successful, a much larger percentage very frustrated, when I got Veron's books I looked up the genus and it turns out theres only a handful of the 20+ species that are found in a wide variety of reef environments and the majority only found in specific ecological niches and maybe preffering a lot of wave action or surprisingly even shunning any direct light and usually found under overhangs, not being able to identify which species or know where it came from doomed many colonies to death at the hands of aquarists who thought they would do well since their other so called "LPS" were doing fine. Acropora microcladoes is an example where tankmates can be a huge factor in wether or not they survive being found only in the company of other acroporas and rarely (<5%) with any other genus of coral (Veron's works lists other species with this same requirement of needing sibling species in close proximity to thrive.)
