How much light is too much?

[Swav8tor]

Was able to borrow a par meter from my lfs and mapped out my tank. I would like to try my hand at sps, but I love my lps and softies. How much light is too much for lps and softies and zoas?

IM 20 Fusion
MIGHTYJET MIDSIZE AIO DC RETURN PUMP (538 GPH)
2 AI Prime HD
Intank media basket
Intank fuge basket
Ghost skimmer
Tunze ATO
Vivid Creative Aquariums RFG

Lights are 10 inches above the water and are 9 inches apart.

I got readings for both saxby’s and BRS AB+

 

[Eagle_Steve]

From my experience LPS, softys, and zoa/palys can be just about anywhere. For example, I have a frogspawn in almost 300 par, zoas in 500 (they did this by growing up a rock), a leather that is in about 350. Then the extreme opposite for all of the a fore mentioned. I have frogspawn in 80 par, zoa growing well in a shaded 40 par area, and another leather in 60 or so par. I can't forget the shrooms. Mine don't care. They are a mix of rics. They will grow high or low and make for a nice trade into the lfs for food lol.

Now for the high par items, they did not just go into that par. All corals go to sand bed and slowly move up. Older ones got moved with a rescape, lights ramped up over 1.5 months and are all thriving (new growth, constantly fragging heads from euphillas), zoas getting scraped off and glued on plugs. All in high light. The same applies to the low light ones as well. The only difference is how far they reach for light as to where they are. Down low they are a little taller or slightly "puffier". Higher up they don't reach as far or get as puffy.

So to keep it short since I have a ton of euphilla in all areas of light, I wanted SPS but wanted to keep a mixed color/ stationary/flowing look, so some things flowy got moved high to break up the stationary and contrast colors. I just took my time ramping the lights up and all is doing well.

 

[jda]

I grow bounces, jawbreakers, wall hammer and a few forms of zoas in 600 PPFD light - I have no less-light areas in this frag tank so this is what they get. They in no way NEED this much, but they certainly are not bothered by it and grow faster than if I had them in less.

The bottom two photo readings are suitable for most SPS almost anywhere in the tank.

Which meter did you use? Does it need a correction factor? Some of them do, and some do not... it can matter up to about 30%, which can be significant.

 

[Swav8tor]

I grow bounces, jawbreakers, wall hammer and a few forms of zoas in 600 PPFD light - I have no less-light areas in this frag tank so this is what they get. They in no way NEED this much, but they certainly are not bothered by it and grow faster than if I had them in less.

The bottom two photo readings are suitable for most SPS almost anywhere in the tank.

Which meter did you use? Does it need a correction factor? Some of them do, and some do not... it can matter up to about 30%, which can be significant.

I think it was an apogee mq 200, borrowed from lfs. Just read the papers on correction figures and it appears the values should be multiplied by 1.08 to get correct figures. Thanks for that information!