Par Readings

[Treylipp]

So I was finally able to get some readings done and was wondering what par you guys keep your corals at?
1 tri color Acro
1 green bird nest
Some Duncan’s and candy cane corals too
Torches: 1 cris torch and 1 Aussie gold
Hammer: 1green hammer and 1 gold hammer
Tons of mushroom like bounces
And numerous zoas
Few montis

Keep in mind everything I have now is thriving just looking to get more insight on what’s right and wrong because I can’t find definite answers online


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[Rainblood]

Its because there are no definitive answers...some settings may work for some but not others...life's funny that way.

But I keep most of my euphyllia between 130-150 par, acros & sps between 200-300.
Mushrooms & zoas - it just depends...some like more light than others.

 

[Treylipp]

Its because there are no definitive answers...some settings may work for some but not others...life's funny that way.

But I keep most of my euphyllia between 130-150 par, acros & sps between 200-300.
Mushrooms & zoas - it just depends...some like more light than others.

Thank you very much!


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[jcook54]

I've done a lot of PAR readings and the levels suggested are good. However, one thing I've learned from seeing and reading a bunch of different tanks is that PAR isn't the most important factor. For a long time in this hobby I thought it was but when I finally upgraded my lights I was somewhat disappointed in the lack of results. I thought the main thing holding me back was inadequate lighting and I was mistaken. You'll find a lot of different tanks that look outstanding can have a broad swing in PAR levels.

 

[Rainblood]

How would you rank it?

1. Nutrients
2. Flow
3. Lighting

Or something else

 

[jcook54]

Well, right now I'd rank it exactly how you have it. That can change but right now my nutrients are all over the place (mainly low) so that's the biggest struggle for me at this point. Flow is an interesting one too. Growers that I respect have always said flow as really, really important but I'm stubborn and didn't pay it enough attention. But now I've seen what a huge difference flow can make and I'm a believer. I had a pink lemonade that was right towards the top of my display tank. Nutrients and PAR are both good and stable in this system and I was ready for the little frag to take off. After 6 months there was zero sign of growth. The only problem that I could see was the rock it was on was in a dead-zone as far as flow is concerned. I moved it to the other end of the tank where is gets a lot more flow (less light) and it's already started encrusting and growing down to the frag rack. It could be the light change (280 PAR down to 240) but I think it's more about the flow.

 

[Treylipp]

Well, right now I'd rank it exactly how you have it. That can change but right now my nutrients are all over the place (mainly low) so that's the biggest struggle for me at this point. Flow is an interesting one too. Growers that I respect have always said flow as really, really important but I'm stubborn and didn't pay it enough attention. But now I've seen what a huge difference flow can make and I'm a believer. I had a pink lemonade that was right towards the top of my display tank. Nutrients and PAR are both good and stable in this system and I was ready for the little frag to take off. After 6 months there was zero sign of growth. The only problem that I could see was the rock it was on was in a dead-zone as far as flow is concerned. I moved it to the other end of the tank where is gets a lot more flow (less light) and it's already started encrusting and growing down to the frag rack. It could be the light change (280 PAR down to 240) but I think it's more about the flow.

That makes so much sense because everything was thriving and I had such off par numbers for certain corals compared to what I was hearing they needed to be


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[jcook54]

I'll use our dear @Shawn as an example. When we got the PAR meters I went over and took a reading on his frag tank. This was an early generation of tank for him but all of the corals (SPS, LPS, Softies) looked really great. Outstanding colors, polyps extension, new growth and all of that other good stuff was evident. I was jealous because my colors were all faded and washed out. My jealousy got even worse when the PAR reading revealed that the majority of the tank was sub-100! In the interim he's put together a new tank but I was struck by how well things looked even when the PAR levels were "too low."

I'd like to reiterate that lighting is still a very important part of growing corals but I've come to believe that wavelength is as important as intensity, perhaps even more important.

 

[Adam]

PUR is more important over PAR. Other than a Seneye we don't have anything economical to measure it. So PAR is what we look at most. BRS has done enough videos on the subject so that we can get a good idea of PUR based on the lights we buy and the LED's that the maker uses.

My ranking is a little different, but it's geared towards SPS or mixed reef.
1.1) Flow
1.2) Nutrients
2) Light
I'd say from what I've seen as far as coloring F & N are almost equal. Keeping all the water parameters stable is just as important too, can't forget about them.

A softy tanks would be the way @Rainblood listed it in post 5.

 

[Shawn]

I do believe that par is important for a lot of coral. But I agree that spectrum is more important. I do think the big three are most important though - Alk, Calk, and Mag. Then flow, then lights. I have less than $800 spent under my canopy currently (in lights). They do a good job. I plan on adding more lights since I bought 4x Noops from @scottw but haven't installed them yet.

To me, with lighting, I think the spectrum is most important. I like blues, and I've researched and most will agree that blue is most important. Especially the 420mm range of light. Some don't like "windex water" and that's totally fine. I think the most important thing, really, is that YOU like what you see and how your corals look. So long as they're alive and thriving there's no "right way" as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Adam]

I do believe that par is important for a lot of coral. But I agree that spectrum is more important. I do think the big three are most important though - Alk, Calk, and Mag. Then flow, then lights. I have less than $800 spent under my canopy currently (in lights). They do a good job. I plan on adding more lights since I bought 4x Noops from @scottw but haven't installed them yet.

To me, with lighting, I think the spectrum is most important. I like blues, and I've researched and most will agree that blue is most important. Especially the 420mm range of light. Some don't like "windex water" and that's totally fine. I think the most important thing, really, is that YOU like what you see and how your corals look. So long as they're alive and thriving there's no "right way" as far as I'm concerned.

The "Windex" look has grown on me some. To expand on what you're saying with the lights. From my research I'm finding 400nm to 465mn with a minor peak at 420nm and 455mn main peak is the most important. Between what we've seen from BRS and the wealth of info Dana Riddle has posted confirming this. If you're hitting those points you can add all the white, red & green you want to get the "look" you like. If you're not then what you like will not be what the coral needs no matter what the PAR is.

With the nutrients, as @ActiveAngel will agree, there are plenty of people running ULNS with barely detectable N & P doing just fine. But without the flow things won't go well for those growing SPS. And like you said, if you can't keep your "big three" stable everything else you do will be for not.

 

[dball711]

I'm going take a different approach and these 3 in the shape of a triangle. Flow at the top point, nutrients & lighting at each or the other points of the triangle. No one component being any more important than the others.

When it comes to acros (really any corals) flow is really important to keep the coral healthy by providing nutrient and moving waste away form the coral so these 2 go together hand in hand. The light is used by the coral's zooxanthellae uses light to create food and oxygen through photosynthesis for the coral. Since all of these can be had in varying strengths the challenge can be finding the right combo for your corals to flourish.

My thoughts on lighting...
To Build on Shawn's comments, I agree with light spectrum having and impact with some of the spectrum being much better for coral health and vitality. The quality of the light measured in PUR has shown me that bluer light has significantly more (meaning a larger percentage of light in that range) is usable Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) for the coral. Personally I strive for light exclusively in the 380nm to 500nm range, I have found that anything much higher than 500nm only changes how my eyes see the coral and significantly contributes to more unwanted algae growth (hair algae).

 

[chibils]

I've seen a lot of people who have success with PAR levels well outside the normally accepted range. For instance, tnyr5 over on R2R has 5 Radions running all channels at 100% over a 20" cube. Some of his acros receive in excess of 1,500 PAR. And then you have Shawn growing SPS with <100 PAR... Makes you wonder if it's something corals actually care much about.

 

[Shawn]

I'm actually going to get a Seneye reef monitor - I don't think the Apogee meters do a great job with light other than LEDs.

 

[chibils]

BRS actually gave them great marks in their PAR meter testing. I take everything they say with a grain of salt, but that one's fairly subjective... And as far as I recall, the Apogee gets less and less accurate when compared to the Seneye in bluer lights. e.g. Apogee came out ahead on 10K-ish lights but was pretty far off for 20K or higher lights, whereas Seneye used some sort of formula to compensate for that.

 

[dball711]

The Seneye monitor/app also gives detail on the light spectrum and provides a PUR value (photosynthetically usable radiation) to quantify the Usable PAR. In my opinion knowing PUR value goes hand in hand with knowing the PAR value.

 

[ichthyoid]

The relevant pigments in corals include multiple forms of chlorophylls, carotenoids, xanthopylls, phycoerythrins and Peridinins.

When you look at the absorption spectrums of those, it all begins to make sense. We need to also know that these pigments can play different roles, all of which are important to the corals-
-primary energy production, ie-chlorophylls
-accessory energy absorption and transfer ie-some carotenoids & peridinin
-photoprotective pigments/sun screen ie-some carotenoids, xanthophylls, phycoerythrins, etc.

So, some of those pigments are the primary active energy producing pigments.

Some of those are accessory pigments, which expand the useable spectrum by absorbing photons and transferring that energy, in the form of excited electrons, to the primary chlorophyll machinery of the cells. These are kind of like extra antennas, used to catch different frequencies, that would otherwise be missed.

Lastly, but very important, some of those pigments absorb light that might otherwise cause damage to the cellular machinery & redirect that energy away, usually in the form of a lower energy photon by way of fluorescence. This is kind of like the coral using sunscreen to help prevent a sunburn.

These are why there is a difference between PAR & PUR. The first is what shows activity. The second is what is actually useable.

Also, the corals & their dinoflagellate symbionts can actively change the balance of these pigments, depending on the light conditions, but it takes them time to do it. We refer to this as acclimating the corals.

Take aways include-
Intensity and absorption of light does not equal useable energy.

Corals can deal with too little energy better than too much energy, at least for a little while. Eventually they may starve. Getting cooked by light is a much quicker way to kill them.

 

[ichthyoid]

Fwiw,
Pigments typically show at least 2 absorption peaks. It might be of interest to know why? It is because the metallic atoms contained within the pigment typically have multiple oxidation states (in chemical terms).

What this means is, they can either have all of their allotment of electrons, or can give one (or more) electrons up temporarily.

With pigments this happens with the absorption of light energy, via photons. Or the release of energy via electron transfer to other molecules. Or, sometimes by re-emitting light, always at a lower energy which is called fluorescence.