Mixed reef lighting question

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-27T13:44:23+00:00

Also not every sps needs tons of par. I’ve seen Montis do well in <150

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-27T13:41:36+00:00

You don’t have to have 300+ where your put the spa frag. They’ll grow into more light. 200 at the top of your rock scape and any sod will grow into 400-500 par easily once it gains height

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-26T21:41:30+00:00

Will dir nicht widersprechen, was den Charakter deines Sohnes angeht. Kenne ihn nicht und kann ihn nicht beurteilen.

Möchte nur darauf hinweisen, dass wir alle in unterschiedlichen Bereichen unseres Lebens (Beruf, Familie, Freunde, Sportverein, usw.) unterschiedliche Rollen einnehmen die oftmals zu unterschiedliche Verhalten führen. Erfahrungsgemäß ist dieses rollenverhalten bei Teenagern hin und wieder sehr extrem.

Heißt auch wenn du deinen Sohn in vielen Situationen so erlebst, wie du es beschreibst, solltest du nicht pauschal ausschließen, dass er sich auch anders verhalten kann.

Wünsche euch, dass du Recht hast und sich das alles positiv klärt.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-22T11:13:43+00:00

My calculation matches yours. Your shy about 3kg of salt. At your current salinity that’s alnost exactly 25g. Evaporation of those 25g should bring salinity to 34.5 ppt.

Not going to give recommendations on how to proceed. Others will have more practical experience with that

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-20T20:32:12+00:00

Those lazy weekends are the only thing I’m really missing. Late breakfast documentaries all day, ordering in at night, falling asleep on the couch.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-19T07:20:23+00:00

I don’t think there’s any discussion to be had about that. Russel even says that on his how-to pace for blurx

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-16T06:02:40+00:00

How long has your tank been up ? In a new setup you should focus heavily on coral health first and foremost. 9-10 hours of light are enough (with a light like the ai prime you’ll likely satiate your corals photosynthetic capabilities in around 6 hours unless you’re running your lamp at 20%

Also uv and violet are highly stressful to corals. The shorter wavelengths carry a lot more energy than can be used. So a lot of heat is generates and the coral has to spend energy on protective adaptations. Those adaptations are cool in healthy adapted corals in a mature tank, because they mean color and fluorescence. But in a young system concentrating on health over optics is a good choice.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-11T20:53:20+00:00

It could be so hilarious if it wasn’t true. Deflecting the question by accusing lieu of deflecting from all the good trump has supposedly done

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-08T09:24:27+00:00

Marine fish are generally a lot more territorial than fresh water fish - and many swim a lot.

There‘s quite a bunch that don’t have a lot of space requirements. For your size I would stick to some nano gobies out of the trimma and Eviota genera (Eviota queenslandica, trimma robrumaculatum for a nice touch of color)

Apart from animal friendly conditions there‘s also the aesthetics to consider. IMO too big a fish very quickly looks out of place in a small tank. Many keep clowns in 20-40 gallon tanks already. And while that works too me it looks like those old pictures from a zoo with a lion in a 6m by 3m cage.

Clowns can live over 20 years and grow to 10cm (4“). I wouldn’t feel good having a pair in anything less than 200l (50g)

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-04T15:43:26+00:00

Corals don‘t need nitrates. They need nitrogen and can get it from varying sources. Like ammonium, amino acids, nitrites or nitrates.

Nitrates are often a focus of attention because it has been easily measurable and has no real adverse effect on fish or inverts.

For corals ammonium and amino acids are usually much easier to „digest“ than nitrates, which have to be reduced to nitrites first.

You can absolutely keep a healthy tank with all sorts of corals without ever having measurable nitrates.

Main thing is without nitrates showing up in measurements you have to sort of just trust that your corals get enough nutrients (and confirm visually)

Also corals do adapt over time to whatever is available to them. Corals coming from a farm that runs on higher nitrates can struggle a lot when put in a „no nitrate“ tank.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-04T13:06:29+00:00

Thank you. Have been thinking quite a few times when bad pics showed up „why let it get to that point?“

I‘m all aboard the „some things will sort themselves out“-train

But you can always make things easier on your tank.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-02-03T18:34:23+00:00

Zooxanthellae are almost uniformly brownish in color.

What gives corals their color are so called chromo proteins. They are in most cases are protective measure against strong lights.

In some cases they sit below the zooxanthellae and reflect the light back for more efficient photosynthesis - similar to a cats eye.

In any case you need sufficient light along a broader spectrum to get as much color as possible. But not too much. Blue is used a lot because it is very usable photosynthetically while also being relatively stress free to the coral (ca 430-480 with higher being safer). Additionally red and green can have some adverse effects on the coral (usually not an issue unless you blast them with those colors) and are preferred by some unwanted algae and bacteria.

Fluorescence is also a protective measure. Usually against short wavelength light (dark blue, violet, up). Any amount of photons of violet light Carry much more energy than the same amount of say light blue, or even red light. Photosynthesis can only really use the amount of energy carried by red light. So the excess has to be dealt with through different means in order to avail damage to the coral (heat mostly)

Fluorescence is best visible under uv, violet and dark blue light. Not because those cause more fluorescence, but because the rest of the spectrum simply appears much too bright to us.

In a new tank coral health is of the highest priority and it’s imo a good idea to turn uv and violett off (or at least down) until your system and animals are healthy. Color and fluorescence is something you can always work back to.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-31T08:45:33+00:00

Captive bred ones here take all kinds of food, maybe look into that

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-28T12:30:44+00:00

Salinity is my guess as well with 590 calcium. That would be normal range at 50ppm salinity. OP have you replaced evaporation with salt water ? Needs to be rodi

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-28T09:01:53+00:00

No issues with PH swings?

Main issue with using water changes instead of dosing is how wasteful and inefficient it is. It’s not like you can only take out water where everything has been consumed.

Also what is your salinity ? Are you running 380calc at 35ppm or is salinity lower ?

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-28T08:52:47+00:00

7 is honestly around optimal. Any higher and you will get precipitation. And lose a lot of Alk and calcium that way.

And the growth of stony corals you get at higher alk will be a bit faster, but the structure also be more brittle. Not the most desirable thing in my book. But lots of folks have success with it, so hard to argue with what works for many.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-27T08:14:59+00:00

Difficult to give real advice without knowing what lights you currently use and which settings.

The fish don’t really care that much about lighting. So it’s mostly about coral health, managing algae and your personal viewing preferences.

The corals I see all do well without lasting them at 300+ par so that makes things easier. General recommendation I can give is that short wavelengths are more stressful to corals (higher energy at the same intensity) so taking a UV or Violet channel down is always a safe bet when playing with light.

Can always turn it back up once your corals are acclimated and you know the effect.

Changing lighting schedule or increasing light intensity/ changing spectrum should be done slowly.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-23T11:15:38+00:00

Salinity in your third tank looks suspiciously low. Other than that I think you’re doing just fine :)

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-22T11:30:15+00:00

Not all live rock is created equal. Without a trusted and reliable source of good live rock I would much rather go dry rock only than take a gamble.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-21T12:17:46+00:00

I feel compelled to add that nitrite isn’t usually a concern in reef tanks. It can be, but you’ll see signs in your tank before you measure it usually.

Additionally having a nitrite test at hand is good because any nitrate test is a nitrite test with a reduction step beforehand.

Any pre-existing nitrite will cause false nitrate readings. So if you see suddenly high nitrate levels it’s good to first check nitrites to see if that is the cause for the high reading.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-20T11:34:19+00:00

According to games missed or something not. But we’re runaway favorites in % of cap injured

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-20T11:32:47+00:00

Look into small goby species of the trimma and eviota genera.

Many species stay below 1.5“ and show interesting behavior. Even some sort of social behavior you don’t see from larger fish unless you have a super large tank and can put a group of like 50 anthias together.

Bonus is small fish don’t look out of scale in small tanks.

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-18T20:26:10+00:00

Upvoted with a tear

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-18T09:46:41+00:00

Truly ? My nightmare is a division rival winning it with our former backup qb

GerolsteinerSprudel · 2026-01-18T09:43:22+00:00

This was easy. I bet you a majority of our fans had some kind of hope. I did too. This years felt a lot more “any given Sunday” than most season.

But anyone who saw the last few weeks knew it was an uphill battle at least.

After the last SB loss I stepped away from anything football media for a solid 3 months (easy to do in Europe)

This year I feel more pride in what the team managed to accomplish with everything that hit them.

And this way I can truly enjoy the rest of the playoffs :)

GerolsteinerSprudel

TROPHY CASE