par & chalice

[lars]

ok- before the question i'll give you a short rundown. i have a 120 sps dom. tank with an 8 bulb tek on it. i gained intrest in chalice's about a year ago and started slowly adding them to the tank on the sand and on low ledges. after a while i noticed the light seemed to be too bright so i started moving them under ledges and such and it helped a little. over time i decided to take a zoa dom. 30gal cube tank and covert it to chalice and brains. i removed the mh off that tank and added a four bulb tek. i thought that would be good ,but i was a little off. the four bulbs seemed to still be to bright. i then turned off two of the bulbs and for 8 months or so it's been like this. since then i've been planning to slowly run the other 2 bulbs for a few minutes a day until maybe i can run all four. well the other day a friend came by with a par meter and with two bulbs on i get about 50 at the bottom and 85 or so at the top of the rock. well with four bulbs on the #'s double(obviously) 100- 160 or so. after all that here's the question- do you think i can succesfully do this without any harm? are those par levels to high for most lps? woul there be any bennifit in doing so? right now most corals look great, but grow very slowly. my sps tank which is plumbed into the cube grows a lot better then most and i'm very pleased with it. i'm just not sure if i'm starving some of my chalice's. p.s i do feed my lps about 2-3 times a week with new life spectrum fish food. any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. SORRY SO LONG! THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ.

 

[CJO]

It really depends on the chalice. I have some that don't like PAR of more than about 80. Most seem to like around 100. My Tyree Pink Watermelon will take anything from around 100 to as much as I can throw at it- I have a frag right now sitting under about 500.

CJ

 

[lars]

500! wow. i only have around 400 at the surface of my sps tank. i did notice my tyree (pink or red? i forget which is which. i have both and there small) does seem to like more light. i have it at about 80. most of my chalice don't make me nervous to move them. they don't seem to be as affected. on the other hand i lost flesh and color from ones like- wwc sherbert watermelon(almost gone), wwc pastel(slowly recovering), superman(slowly recovering) and a few wild ones. also it seems that any red chalice turns more of a purple color loosing it's red metalic look. i thought this was also from light.