How Much White Light Do Corals Need
Here are my parameters.
How much white light do corals need. According to Borneman in Aquarium Coral a toadstool coral reaches maturity in about 6-10 years. A LED fixture will lose up to about 20 of PAR when running a diffuser. If the corals you want to grow have been collected from shallower waters up to 6 meters or 19 feet then set the LED lighting settings of your aquarium to a higher full-spectrum intensity.
Aug 23 2015 81858 pm. Youre safe to still run your sunrisesunset lighting for the same time but you should consider reducing the amount of time that your daylight spectrum runs. Reduce the time period down to 7-8 hours per day instead of 10 hours.
To comment on hydrojeffs statement there are corals that can be kept under low lighting such as mushrooms leathers and zoas. Since corals need sunlight to make food most live in shallow waters near the oceans surface which exposes them to UV-A. Placement of Torch Corals in a Reef Tank.
Motivation being that the light and colours our eyes see is the light being reflected off the coral. 24 x 24 x inches Thats a big coral. Some papers even suggest the GFP green fluorescent pigment in the fluorescent green corals is actually a sun-block for coral against UV rays.
The human eye sees somewhere about 560 nanometers as the brightest. Most hobbyists run their aquarium lights a total of 10-12 hours per day including a 1-hour sunrisesunset. These corals are low-maintenance so they do not require high levels of lighting they also tend to grow quickly.
An intensity between 50 and 80 will likely provide all of the PAR required for your corals. The coloration of coral polyps and tissues is dictated by these zooxanthellae. I cannot control the daylight separately from the actinic so I have mine on for 12 hours 9am to 9pm and no problems with algae.