Curious -why lower the lights? Doesnt that just add another variable that will need to be addressed?
Tank crashing
- Thread starter Reefcube
- Start date
- Tagged users None
Curious -why lower the lights? Doesnt that just add another variable that will need to be addressed?
Sarah24!
2500 Club Member
m
In terms (medically speaking) most reefers turn their lights down when acclimating new fish or corals. This is to help reduce stress. The same applies here the corals are stressed turned them down can help them heal. It can help them reaccilimate to the tank conditions. Most forget these are micro organisms, aka living animals.
Same as we most animals and humans when one is sick, they don’t lay out in the sun, they usuall trend to shady sections. Instead of using resources to try and grow it can use resources to heal, if other parameters are back in check.
marvelousone
Well-Known Member
Do you have a Walmart. They have it with the jars for canning.
I guess my question relates to the. sea - when corals are stressed -what tuns down the sun? They are living organisms in the ocean as well -just curious as to what you rationale was
Sarah24!
2500 Club Member
Hello,
Okay my rational is the same as yours oceans have an open current flow we don’t. The oceans don’t have protein skimmers, or heaters wave makers (should I continue)? The other point is the ocean has been stable for how many thousands of years (rather this tank for how many months weeks or a year)?. Yes we can’t turn down the sun, but if we as humans could stop destroying the earth the corals may just survive with out our help.
My other point is his tank isn’t in an ocean, he has a controlled environment, where the ocean not so much. At least with my point he has a starting point. Didn’t see you submitting any sound advice? Turning the lights down does reduce stress, if it didnt hen why do we all do it and why is it recommend? Instead of complaining maybe you should help him so his tank doesn’t die.
Stigigemla
Well-Known Member
I believe that reduced light many times reduces stress for corals, especially after transports.
But many other times it could be humanizing - have we put our way to be as a template for corals?
Most humans want to have reduced light when they have high fever.
I gave my way to fix the problem in #38.
But many other times it could be humanizing - have we put our way to be as a template for corals?
Most humans want to have reduced light when they have high fever.
I gave my way to fix the problem in #38.
Yeah. Well sometimes messing with lights causes more problems than it was designed to solve. I only asked because I’m not sure turning down light wouldn’t do more harm than good.
your tank look lik ewhat?
Oceans have a protein skimmer, it's sea foam :)
This kind of grosses me out, bathing in a giant skimmer cup ;Nailbiting ;Dead
BTW - sorry - I didn't answer your question - First - I actually replied with suggestions to his problems twice. Below you can find the the quotes. Second - I don't turn down my lights unless I'm acclimating new coral to my tank - and thats only if the PAR level in my tank is much different than the PAR level in the tank from which they came. So - I think thats why its recommended. I'm not sure that turning the lights down 'reduces stress' - unless they are too bright - which doesn't seem to be the case. However, that was just my opinion - so I was curious about your rationale. Thanks.
Sarah24!
2500 Club Member
Hello,
Here is a pic of my tank that is a 240 and is about 14 months old. Your turn:) plus I have my undergrad in micro biology and marine biology and finished my medical last May. So yes I have studied this a lot and reducing lights will help stressed coral in a closed system. Your description of the oceans protein skimmer compared to ours is not the same.
Edit (oops hit post to soon, in addition to what other have mentioned this was not. Every time we introduce new coral and or new fish we general dim our lights (fish usually in a qt), some display and even then when transferring from that point we dim the lights. We normally have to acclimate items to our conditions. Yes in the ocean the sun doesn’t turn down, but there are clouds, there is rain, there are actual weather patterns. So the corals do in the wild get the sun turned down but naturally not by a switch. The ocean has a huge water mass compared to our tanks obviously, but it filters the water several different ways. One is how and when for each section the earth is on its axis relative to the moon. The tides change, waves change based on weather. There are things we don’t even know yet about the ocean yet some how we summed it as one big skimmer. We couldn’t create the same natural affect as the ocean so we created a plastic skimmer.
@MnFish1 yes I saw your suggestions which were similar to others and we all needed more information. One that had not been suggested was light reduction. In years of completing my undergrad I had to do lots of lab and experiments for my thesis. Since corals are a form of simply animal when sick, they emit energy to fix what’s wrong. Example if a human has a cold or flu and gets a fever, the fever is from the body warming itself higher than normal to kill the virus. Before we had medication that’s what happened, same with sick or wounded animals, dogs cats etc. most go find shade and try to recover or hide so they do not become prey. Since corals are a simple animal it will try and find a remedy. Yet when you offered your solutions I didn’t criticize your thoughts. We were all trying to help the op save his tank, which my idea wasn’t incorrect it was an addition to what was already mentioned. When this is happening do you think it’s the correct time to criticize an idea. The op probably doesn’t want to hear it, instead they probably want people to collaborate and save the tank. If water changes and stabilizing it and other items isn’t working atm turning the lights down can help slow the process where they can stn and or rtn. Yes we all have different methods all work, but every tank is different and responds different . It’s the same with animals and humans, one human may respond very well to certain pain medication, or stress medication or heart medication, others may have no effect. So what do we do, we find a solution that helps the person that is sick. We don’t argue or criticize one and other (unless they are just completely treating said problem wrong). Again, when you had posted others had said similar things, correct. So yes you posted before I had but we had not seen or heard of much improvement. Which then we starting digging deeper to find a solution. Comparing our tanks to how the ocean works and Mother Nature is not easy, simply because we do not know all about the ocean yet. We dont even identifies for half the corals their or all the animals or organisms that reside there. How could we possibly know everything?
Last edited:
Hello,
Here is a pic of my tank that is a 240 and is about 14 months old. Your turn:) plus I have my undergrad in micro biology and marine biology and finished my medical last May. So yes I have studied this a lot and reducing lights will help stressed coral in a closed system. Your description of the oceans protein skimmer compared to ours is not the same.
Not sure why you're making this some kind of competition. You didn't quote my response - but I still would like some information on how lowering lights (how much - how long) 'reduces stress' except when adding new coral to your tank. I say this because adjusting light back up can also cause stress. (BTW - making any change in light 'causes stress', IMHO). Here is a nice article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5599546/
BTW nice tank
Sarah24!
2500 Club Member
Hello,
Thanks for the compliment on my tank I try hard to keep it going. I want to make sure you know that I’m not trying to have a competition or say your wrong etc. my main goal is to provide helpful information to the op or anyone.
In terms of research I have done lots and lots but I’m terrible at smart phones. (Normally I have used my computer but not at work till tonight) so I have some articles that discuss what we have spoken about how to do what you did provide the post I have no idea, but
1.) japan-forward real voices real Japan wrote an article about how corals as animals can actually stress and what they do when stressed etc. name of the article is “Can Stressed Corals Be Treated? Japanese University Team Says Yes”. It was released December of 2018. My phone just shows Japan-forward so no idea how to provide the link.
It gives a great example of how and why corals stress and how they on their own try to have their own immune system counter such issues. I couldn’t even figure out how to cut and paste but took a photo of it and added it. To make sure people know the copyright it’s out of the article I mentioned above (this is not by me at all). It also mentions that corals have their own mechanism of being able to block strong ultra violent lighting etc (please read article for reference). However as I used this article for other purposes, it does show that they have their own type of immune system (definitely not like ours etc) but in their own way. It’s extremely interesting to read and how we are progressing into Saving corals they have begun already to stress.
In my research another article in the Times of India also states that corals exposed to too much sunlight can cause stress and bleaching. Again I have no clue how to attach the link but took a pic just so some could try and look it up the article name is “Why are corals so stressed?” Date of January 17 of 2017 the times of India. This again is a wonderful article on how to reduce and prevent corals from stress or bleaching and also how to save them once they have started.
All I am trying to do is share my knowledge with others and hope that it works. So far I have been successful with my mixed reef by doing research and reading articles.
I agree with everything you said - Just to be clear -I never said it was incorrect or wrong to turn down the lights - only what your rationale was - because when I have tried it before (even with trying to acclimate) - it has maybe done some good for the new corals - but the others have suffered. I was only trying to help as well....:)...Hello,
Thanks for the compliment on my tank I try hard to keep it going. I want to make sure you know that I’m not trying to have a competition or say your wrong etc. my main goal is to provide helpful information to the op or anyone.
In terms of research I have done lots and lots but I’m terrible at smart phones. (Normally I have used my computer but not at work till tonight) so I have some articles that discuss what we have spoken about how to do what you did provide the post I have no idea, but
1.) japan-forward real voices real Japan wrote an article about how corals as animals can actually stress and what they do when stressed etc. name of the article is “Can Stressed Corals Be Treated? Japanese University Team Says Yes”. It was released December of 2018. My phone just shows Japan-forward so no idea how to provide the link.
It gives a great example of how and why corals stress and how they on their own try to have their own immune system counter such issues. I couldn’t even figure out how to cut and paste but took a photo of it and added it. To make sure people know the copyright it’s out of the article I mentioned above (this is not by me at all). It also mentions that corals have their own mechanism of being able to block strong ultra violent lighting etc (please read article for reference). However as I used this article for other purposes, it does show that they have their own type of immune system (definitely not like ours etc) but in their own way. It’s extremely interesting to read and how we are progressing into Saving corals they have begun already to stress.
In my research another article in the Times of India also states that corals exposed to too much sunlight can cause stress and bleaching. Again I have no clue how to attach the link but took a pic just so some could try and look it up the article name is “Why are corals so stressed?” Date of January 17 of 2017 the times of India. This again is a wonderful article on how to reduce and prevent corals from stress or bleaching and also how to save them once they have started.
All I am trying to do is share my knowledge with others and hope that it works. So far I have been successful with my mixed reef by doing research and reading articles.
One thing I have heard - and noticed - is that with Alk changes - esp on the high end - too much light can be a problem. because there is more oxidative stress from increased growth, etc (free radicals).
Rick.45cal
2500 Club Member
Shortening or lowering the intensity of the light can help bleaching events, but bleaching in closed systems with no spike in temperature, in my experience are a result of nitrogen starvation. His pictures don’t look like a bleaching event.
Phosphate starvation results in bald patches in montis, and tissue damage in sps to the point of exposed skeletons, in acans and lps it results in tissue recession and all out polyp bailout or death. All of which are in his photos. Plus OP has been running GFO without knowing their actual phosphate value. Reef2Reef is full of threads of people who’ve done this to their corals either by running too much GFO or running it too efficiently, or even just running it when there was no need for it in the beginning. (I personally will never run GFO on a reef aquarium). Everything in that picture of his tank screams phosphate deficiency too me.
The reason I suggested dosing nitrate and phosphate as opposed to feeding more is further damage can be stopped by simply adding a source of nitrate and phosphate. Feeding is a round about, gotta wait for it to be processed and available for the inhabitants, that being said, I agree more feeding needs to occur over the long term to help prevent this from happening. It’s really not scary to dose either nitrate or phosphate, I do it regularly in my system because of my light intensity and getting very low nutrients results in exactly this type of damage. If I maintain detectable nitrates and phosphates the corals flourish.
I agree 100% with the sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing until you’ve figured out what’s wrong. In my opinion, doing massive water changes in a reef tank does nothing but increase instability, and in the case of nutrient deficiencies it contributes to the problem (unless your new saltwater has nitrates and phosphates in it).
None of this information is useful though without having test kits and using them regularly! Test everything, including new saltwater!
Phosphate starvation results in bald patches in montis, and tissue damage in sps to the point of exposed skeletons, in acans and lps it results in tissue recession and all out polyp bailout or death. All of which are in his photos. Plus OP has been running GFO without knowing their actual phosphate value. Reef2Reef is full of threads of people who’ve done this to their corals either by running too much GFO or running it too efficiently, or even just running it when there was no need for it in the beginning. (I personally will never run GFO on a reef aquarium). Everything in that picture of his tank screams phosphate deficiency too me.
The reason I suggested dosing nitrate and phosphate as opposed to feeding more is further damage can be stopped by simply adding a source of nitrate and phosphate. Feeding is a round about, gotta wait for it to be processed and available for the inhabitants, that being said, I agree more feeding needs to occur over the long term to help prevent this from happening. It’s really not scary to dose either nitrate or phosphate, I do it regularly in my system because of my light intensity and getting very low nutrients results in exactly this type of damage. If I maintain detectable nitrates and phosphates the corals flourish.
I agree 100% with the sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing until you’ve figured out what’s wrong. In my opinion, doing massive water changes in a reef tank does nothing but increase instability, and in the case of nutrient deficiencies it contributes to the problem (unless your new saltwater has nitrates and phosphates in it).
None of this information is useful though without having test kits and using them regularly! Test everything, including new saltwater!
BonelessEvil
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2017
- Messages
- 154
- Reaction score
- 45
Absolutely, Hanna dKH checker is awesome! But just in case you want to play with chemistry for some crazy reason, I like Red Sea stuff
I agree to this assessment. I think it's 100% right, correct
TEST!
Similar threads
