What are your experiences with keeping SPS under PC's?

[Beckmola24]

Just wondering how succesful people have been with keeping SPS under PC's?? What was your coral growth like and are you able to keep good color on the sps? Also what was the polyp extension like?? I'll take any input or info I can get :)

[Polkster13]

Tried it but they just did not do well. I have a Pink Cat's Paw that I purchased and it turned brown. Replaced the two PC's with 6 T-5's (3 - actinic and 3 - 10,000K daylights) and the acro turned a bright pink and started a growth spurt. If you do go with PC's, you need to place the acros no depper than 6 inches under the surface but they would do better in the top four inches. If you want to keep a lot of SPS corals, I would highly recommend going to MH lights and supplement with actinics (T-5 or VHO). They make all of the difference in the world.

[Beckmola24]

Were the SPS in your 135 or 29 and how far from the lights were the corals placed??

[Andrew]

you can place sps deeper if you have more bulbs. The top of my 40 gallon is completely covered with four 96 watt pc's and I've had decent growth and color for sps, considering no MH. All my corals started as small frags. My bali slimer's grown 3-4" in a year, montiporas up to 4-5"/yr., maxima clams between 3/4 and 1". Green sps seem to color the best. I have a pink digitata that is pink, though not as bright as under vhos in another tank. Orange digi is colored nicely. Things that don't color so well IME are purple and blue digis and blue acros - (more of the deep rich colors), and sps like pink stylophora and birds nest.

The more blue spectrum, the better color you will get with sps if using pc's. I currently run two current usa dual actinics and two coralife 10k. I may add two vho actinic once i redo my tank here in couple months, so I should get better color. I may also replace the dual actinics with 03's.

I decieded to go PC because of the lower energy consumption, and because many people say that sps can't be grown with pc, so i have to prove them wrong (;
HTH
Andrew

[Beckmola24]

I am with you on that one Andrew! I want to do it because people say you can't :) lol...

[brieman]

Mine were doing alright under PC's but there was a significant change after switching to halides, in fact there was a change in almost everything

[Beckmola24]

The corals will eventually go under 4- 250W DE's but for the time being (until I get the 240 up and going) I would like to be able to grab some of the nice frags I sometimes see at my LFS :)

[GaryP]

Make sure your actinic PCs are true actinic (420 nm). There are some other PC actinics out there that are basically just blue bulbs (~460 nm.) You really need 420 nm to get good color development.

[JimD]

uhhhg, I prolly shouldnt voice an opinion here, in fact, I think I wont.... lol Well, maybe a little one,,, nah, never mind....

[Beckmola24]

Don't feel bad about any opinion(s) :) I'd like to hear what everyone has to say :)

[pilot_bell777]

I had mine under 6 96 watt PCs and about 8 to 10 inches under the water (lights were 5 ro 6 inches above the water) and they just slowly got worse and worse until they were no more.

[MikeDeL]

I just switched from PCs. In fact I have only had my halide over my tank for 2 days now. Halides make all the differance in the world. My SPS did good under my PC lighting. Now that I have a halide over them I see that they were really just doing OK under PC lighting.

[Andrew]

I have noticed PC actinics, whether 03 (420nm) or dual (half 420/half 460nm) really drop off in intensity after the first month of use, and are ready for the trash after 6-8 months, max. I haven't observed this with the 10k bulbs, however. I may go with four 10k PC, and squeeze in a couple uri superactinics beside them next time bulbs need changing.

JimD, let's hear it! I little controversy keeps things interesting. . . (:

Andrew

[MikeDeL]

I think Jim might be holding back on the "Do corals need actinic to thrive" debate.

[Andrew]

I'm interested. tell me more. . .

[Polkster13]

Beckmola24, to answer your question:

My Cat's Paw is just under the surface of my 135, maybe two inches. The two PC bulbs were half actinic/half daylight bulbs that were 36 inches long using a reflector. I switched to 3 T-5 ballasts running 6 bulbs (3 actinic and 3 daylights). All of my corals perked up with the lighting change AND the two bulb-tip anemones developed bulbs on the tips of the tentacles.

[GaryP]

Let me clarify my earlier post. I do not think that SPS needs 420 nm to thrive. This issue has been pretty thouroughly beat to death. I DO think that 420 nm is essential for pigment formation and color development. Just go take a look at Gator's 175 that has almost 1000 watts of actinic VHO and tell me I'm wrong.

420 nm is close to UV light on the light spectrum. It is thought that the colorful pigments we seek in SPS is the corals protective strategy to prevent being burned by UV. Sort of like the way we get tanned in response to sunlight. By using actinic we are fooling the corals into responding to it like it would to the intense UV light it would get in tropical latitudes.

[JimD]

I think Jim might be holding back on the "Do corals need actinic to thrive" debate.

Nah, not at all, Garys post above is right on the money. I was more inclined to address the PC vs halide/sps debate. Sure, you can do some species of sps using PC's, will they survive? Probably, will they thrive? Probably not depending on the species. Most hobbiests that want to take the dive into sps will have usually evolved from pc's to halides because the demands are much more challenging, I know I went through the whole pc/halide period and learned through experience. An earlier poster mentioned that the bulbs needed to be replaced every six months or so, thats a fact! The intensty of them decreases dramaticly as soon as you plug them in, especially the 10k's. I think pc's should be used for FO tanks and refugiums and halides should always be used for SPS dominated tanks IF youre looking for growth and coloration. The shimmer lines from halides are way cool and help assist growth in a way that pc's or even vho's cant... There ya have it! My opinion on pc's. Basicly, they suck for sps corals... oh yeah,,, IMO! lol

[Beckmola24]

I find that interesting that people can actually say SPS won't thrive under PC's... I posted the question to get a feel of what I could keep SPS wise. I've already tried it with some SPS, but never got into anything else besides what's in the picture. This is my tank before I had to tear it down for my move (sad sad day indeed) 130Watts of PC's over a 20 high. Most of the frags were given to me from a tank that had 4 400W halides, and none of the frags lost their color. Were my SPS thriving, growing and colorful?? You bet.

[gjuarez]

Wow. they were looking good. I tried it and I would never try it again. Unfortunately, mine didnt make it. My reasons for not going metal halide were strictly because I couldnt afford the halides. I wasnt trying to prove anything. For those guys who have successfully kept sps under pcs, what did you guys do different? Why do you feel you were successful while many of us werent? I am not trying to mock anyone, I am just very curious and may want to try again someday.

[Beckmola24]

I didn't try metal halides because of money too... I really didn't want to prove anything either. Maybe just that newbies can keep SPS if they try hard enough (that was my first tank) everyone said that SPS werer hard to keep and I really wanted a challenging hobby. There is this stigma that SPS must be under halides to do well and I guess with my experiences I don't agree. What I did different?? Well the only thing I can think of is that my heart was in that tank. It was my pride and joy and I loved every aspect about my tank and every creature that lived in there. I kept my water quality high and I ran a CPR backpack skimmer, and an Aquaclear 200 filter. I had 2 MJ1200 powerheads and a LOT of live rock crammed into that tank. I never had water quality issues (cept when a neighbor decided it was ok to put tap in there while I was on vacation... hair algae heaven) anyways water quality was high, and I added Calcium faithfully. I have pics that show the progression of growth in my Stylophora. I didn't have a large bio-load either... Just the clarkii and blenny. I think that helped keep the water clean. If you look at my rockwork, I also had the rocks very close to the top of the water where the light was the strongest. I placed all of the SPS that needed high lighting up at the top. I don't know what else to say :) I really miss my tank and hope to get a 240 going in the near future. I will have halides on that one (4-250W)