Guillo1's 243G Solar Powered Reef
- Thread starter Ace25
- Start date
There has to be some conclusions we could draw from your experience, like why did you get MORE growth in the last 3 months than before? Possibly the saying that "reducing your light schedule makes your corals grow a lot more" is actually true? I have seen people say that for years now.. like switching your MH from 8 hours to 6 hours a day will INCREASE growth but not enough evidence to convince me it worked.. but look at your tank.. the less PAR it gets as the winter months hit, the MORE your corals seem to grow to a point. Some type of stress the reduced lighting induces on the corals that makes them grow more, like making an anemone split from stressing it. You can only stress a coral so much before negative things start to happen, but maybe in nature/sunlight/seasons this is how corals are supposed to behave.. start growing/coloring up in the spring, average growth and great coloration in the summer, then fall hits and sunlight gets less and less, colors fade a tad, but growth going through the roof for a couple months.. then they stall and sit almost dormant for a few months until spring, and the process repeats. Not sure if that is how it actually works, but sounds like a good theory to me. We will have to watch closely in 2010 to see how the corals react to the seasons.
That is an interesting theory, but as most coral reefs are naturally oriented very close to the equator, there would be very little variation in photoperiod over the seasons. That is not to say the "stress" caused by a varying photoperiod would not cause increased growth...
Ace, where does he live? He is only using the solar tubes for lighting correct? Does cloudy weather have much effect on the corals, say like if it's gloomy all day or that the sun is not out much like here in MI during the winter months? That is quite awesome that you could have that much light without the heat from bulbs. not a word for guys to use much but it is BEAUTIFUL.
Very true for the large majority of things we collect in our hobby.. but I would think the Great Barrier Reef is far enough from the equator to have some seasonal effect. Obviously not as much as where Guillo1 and I live, but it would still have some fluctuation of PAR levels through the seasons. Looking at a globe, it is actually pretty close to where we are as far as distance from the equator, just opposite seasons/hemispheres.
His tank is located in Santa Maria, California. He also uses I believe 8 T5HOs for actinics.. may only be 6 bulbs, not sure, but he does have some additional blue lighting. Cloudy days.. nature has them all the time.. corals seem to do fine.. what is not normal is for corals to be under intense MH light 365 days a year. I am betting if we could tailor our light schedules better, have seasonal time periods for our lighting, we may actually have better success with corals, ie, summer have 8-9 hour MH days, but winter have 4-5 hour MH days.
His tank is located in Santa Maria, California. He also uses I believe 8 T5HOs for actinics.. may only be 6 bulbs, not sure, but he does have some additional blue lighting. Cloudy days.. nature has them all the time.. corals seem to do fine.. what is not normal is for corals to be under intense MH light 365 days a year. I am betting if we could tailor our light schedules better, have seasonal time periods for our lighting, we may actually have better success with corals, ie, summer have 8-9 hour MH days, but winter have 4-5 hour MH days.
This tank is unbelievable and amazing in person. The colors and growth are unreal. You definetly deserve an award Guillo....Tank of the Decade.
