High Tide Aquatics

2 questions re: mh lighting

sid700

Supporting Member
1) I'm thinking of changing my lights from 14k to 20k (same wattage). Do I need to acclimate the tank? For how long - a week?

2) Do corals change color with changing light temp? Not just in how it appears under the new light temp, but do corals actually undergo a color change? And if I go back to the original light temp, would the color go back to its previous color?
 
Assuming the typical trend of 20K par < 14k Par, it should adjust on it's own (no bleaching episode from the reverse light shock). What is your old/new bulb?

They can go under a pigment shift.
 
I currently have Reef Optics 14k. I would like to change to Reef Optics 20k.

Pigment shift? Is that like my skin - gets darker with sunlight? I'm wondering if a coral will change color, not get darker or lighter. Like from beige to blue? Or purple to green just by changing the light temp.

I bought a purple acro (Garf ?) that was in a 20k, frag tank. Turned green in my 15k tank but it's growing and encrusting. I don't know if it's the light temp, the tank placement, diet or all of the above. I'd like to try the 20k to see if it will become purple again. Also, I am interested to see how the other corals fare under 20k.
 
Our skin just get slighter and darker because we just have (more or less) one pigment color. Coral have many. Different lighting conditions can bring out/suppress certain colors. Other parameters can also cause colors to shift as well. I'd believe (not 100% sure with memory), but you can basically get a sunscreen effect with corals. If you blast them with too much of one color, they will shield them self by producing more of that wavelength absorbing pigment.
 
brown seems to be the universal "color" that corals go to, typically blue/purple/green tends to be in the same general area meaning depending upon the color you might get colors that revolve around there, the other end of the spectrum the red/orange/pinks also are similar in where coral colors can go... this is by no means "the rule" but just something I've observed personally with my own corals. Meaning I've seen blue corals turn purple or green, and I've seen orange go to pink or red, but never red turning to blue.
 
Back
Top