need help with corals

[Salt Freak]

I was wondering on how to accumlate corals to a tank I plan on drip accumlating and don't they choose the spot in the aquarium were u move it around the tank and it finds out were it likes itself in the tank and i would like to know pretty much everything on corals. the coral i'm going to get is a Trachyphyllia brain coral.

 

[Opcn]

Brains get big, they kill other corals near them (within 4 inches), and like lots of light, You want to ACClIMATE them, and the drip method is the way to go, just dont touch the living parts of the coral and be sure you have the right kind of light BEFORE you get the coral.

 

[Salt Freak]

The lights I have on the tank or T-8 Atinic blue and Atinic white For trace elements I plan on using kent marine Iodine, calcuim, strotium molydnem, coral-vite.

 

[RamJet]

I dont think a brain is going to do well under T-8.

 

[Salt Freak]

What type of lighting I don't want to use metal halides they make the water look yellow even with the atinic blues there extremely expensive produce massive amounts of heat. And drink electricity like like never before. Is there any other options beside metal halide. I heard they can do with t-8's what kind of corals can do t-8.

 

[Navarre]

I dont think you will be overly successful with them under T8s. Brains are hard corals and require very strong lights. The prolem is that a brain coral prefers to siton the sand or lower in the tank, this means its obvioulsy the farthest away from the lightsource so T8s may just not be strong enoughto reavh the bottom of the tank.

T5s are better as you can fit more under the lid.

As for ahalides making the water yellow? If the bulb is 10k or less then yes it willl but 14k or 20k will not give you any yellow at all.


Just a note however... the corals prefer the yellow lights. blue lights is for our asthetic tastes only, they are not as good as 10k bulbs. )

 

[Salt Freak]

O I thought that the corals needed the UV side of the spectrum because that was the only light that got down deep in the reefs becuase of th eshort wavelenght on the blues and violets.

 

[Navarre]

If you were to go to the depth at only blue light can penetrate then you will find very few corals that survive on light. Plenty of Dendronepthyas but these are not light dependant. Nearly all other corals are living higher in the water colum and need natural sunlight which is 6.5K colour temperature. Blue lights are in the tempertature ranges of 20k+

 

[Salt Freak]

I see what about atinic whites right now I have atinic whites and atinic blues. could that cover the other side of the spectrum.

 

[Navarre]

I have never heard of actinic whites. I would check out the website for the manufacturer anmd see what temperature range these tubs are.

 

[Salt Freak]

both my atinic blues and whites both are 9,000 kelvin so that would be 18,000 kelvin on my tank. would this do.

 

[Opcn]

no, you dont add the two together, the color temp is just giving you a number for the color scale, purple corresponds to one range yellow to another red plus red equals more red not green

 

[Navarre]

Opcn is right, by adding 2x 10k lights for example means you simply have 2 lights at 10k range and not 20k range.