Light exposures for Coral

[nasz_laws]

Can some teach me how much light does coral need to growth and what is spektrum and also diffrent exposures for sps, soft coral and etc? Thanks a lot.

 

[mcarroll]

It's complicated a little...

"Most corals" come from "most light regimes"....only a few demand "high" or "low" light (i.e. "shallow" or "deep" habitat).

But that kinda makes it simple. Most corals seem to do OK with around 40,000 lux. Many even do great under as little as 10,000-20,000 lux.

In general, I say 20,000-80,000 lux is about the safe range....below that and some corals may grow a bit slower, above that and corals will begin showing signs of light stress in some cases.

If you're using a light made for aquariums, you pretty much don't have to worry about spectrum - they will all grow corals pretty well if you master the non-lighting side of the hobby.

But if you're just curious, this diagram gives a pretty good visual of the color of light at various depths. If you happen to know where your coral is from and that it has particular demands, you could use this to try and tune your lights for the depth you wanted.

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/04deepscope/background/deeplight/media/diagram3.html