Anyone Else Sick of Actinic Only Pics?

[Surfandturf]

Just ask yourself what spectrum chlorophyll a uses...

What end of the spectrum that is.

 

[SteadyC]

I do dive, we learn (for photography and videography) that water selectively scatters and absorbs certain wavelengths of visible light. The long wavelengths of the light spectrum, red, yellow, and orange can penetrate to approximately 15, 30, and 50 meters(49, 98, and 164 feet), while the short wavelengths of the light spectrum, violet, blue and green can penetrate further. Blue penetrates the deepest, which is why deep, clear ocean water and some tropical water appear to be blue most of the time. Most SPS dominant areas that I have dove, Indonesia, Maldives, Thailand, the SPS corals are typically 60 feet or deeper, more common 80 feet or deeper. Red is filtered out completely within 15 meters, most SPS never see red in the ocean. While yellow and orange can penetrate further, their intensity is weakened. With most SPS, the strongest intensity lightning the see are violet, green, and blue, in that order with blue being strongest.

 

[SteadyC]

You can probably have a tank with blue-only look. Most T5 looking lights are not truly blue only, just look blue to our eyes - there is a lot of green, yellow and red in there as well as IR and some UV. You do not see too many reefs with blue-only LEDs and forsake all others.

However, this misconception that stuff is found only in deep water where only blue penetrates is mostly false. The vast majority of what we keep is collected in less than 3 meters... with snorkels or with guys just holding their breath. Some of them collect in waist deep water at low tide. Sure, some stuff is collected from deeper, but mostly fish - rebreathers are semi-dangerous and expensive and fish get more money than corals. The coral that comes from more than 30 meters where the water is mostly blue is few and far-between. The vast majority of the coral that we keep got full daylight spectrum in the ocean from about 350nm to 850nm... give or take.

When we were in the Coral Sea/Indo watching guys work, they had on masks, saws/cutters and bags for the goodies that they collected - no scuba gear.

Aquaculture sites are also less than 3 meters deep and some of them are in greenhouses with saltwater pumped in to shallow flats.

Sorry but, all natural SPS corals, before man was involved, live and grow in the deeper waters. For many reasons. Just because we moved them up and farmed them, doesn’t mean they don’t prefer the spectrums from deeper water where they have been growing for centuries. You can watch videos of Jason Fox getting SPS corals in Indo, all 80 feet or deeper. Guys with hoses, to a compressor on a boat, no dive gear too.

 

[littleruttiger]

Sorry but, all natural SPS corals, before man was involved, live and grow in the deeper waters. For many reasons. Just because we moved them up and farmed them, doesn’t mean they don’t prefer the spectrums from deeper water where they have been growing for centuries. You can watch videos of Jason Fox getting SPS corals in Indo, all 80 feet or deeper. Guys with hoses, to a compressor on a boat, no dive gear too.

I don't think the claim that all natural sps corals live and grow in deeper waters is true?

Here's a story about trying to track down the origins of the purple monster, they're dealing with 15 ft, they say

https://reefbuilders.com/2015/08/05/tracked-purple-monster-acro-original-source/

And then, I mean,

 

[SteadyC]

I don’t blame coral growers for using mostly blue or actinic lighting, they have a crop to grow and sell, that crop is corals. And clearly they are using mostly blue and actinic lighting for a reason, should tell all of us something, people whose livelihood depends on growing corals. Jason Fox uses mostly actinic lighting, he has videos online, which you can find here in reef2reef of his tanks and which lighting is on those tanks, his clear goal is to grow coral quickly to frag and sell. I’m more into coral growth and health personally. I’m also not strictly blue either, I do like to look at my tank,

Orphek has two great articles on spectrum.
https://orphek.com/the-correct-light-spectrum/
https://orphek.com/understanding-spectral-wavelengths/

“The acronym PUR relates to Photosynthetic Usable Radiation. This is the spectral range of light that is most beneficial to coral growth and has two ranges; 400-550 (violet, blue, green), and 620-700 (present but much lower intensity). This also happens to be in the spectrum ranges where light intensity is the least sensitive to our eyes.” How interesting is that? Our eyes and our corals have different preferences and sensitivity to light spectrums.

 

[Surfandturf]

Blue light, no blue light, science will set you free! Look it up! If you want to talk about bad business habits, stop supporting the LFS that sells people full setups with no clue how to maintain it and take care of the livestock. This happens in every state and every city that has competition. There are some that will sell people 6 fish the day after they set their tank up and threw some stability in it. We have all seen it and it usually happens around tax return time. To me, that is shady.

 

[SteadyC]

I don't think the claim that all natural sps corals live and grow in deeper waters is true?

Here's a story about trying to track down the origins of the purple monster, they're dealing with 15 ft, they say

https://reefbuilders.com/2015/08/05/tracked-purple-monster-acro-original-source/

And then, I mean,

I didn’t say all, I said most. While that is a gorgeous picture, and there are SPS corals that grow in shallow water, do you really believe that is as common as SPS coral fields that grow deeper, say 60 feet or deeper? Rhetorical question.

 

[littleruttiger]

I didn’t say all, I said most. While that is a gorgeous picture, and there are SPS corals that grow in shallow water, do you really believe that is as common as SPS coral fields that grow deeper, say 60 feet or deeper? Rhetorical question.

Quote: "Sorry but, all natural SPS corals, before man was involved, live and grow in the deeper waters."

 

[SteadyC]

Quote: "Sorry but, all natural SPS corals, before man was involved, live and grow in the deeper waters."

Ha, too many posts, too late at night. Most of the time, in most of my posts, I said most SPS. .

 

[littleruttiger]

But, anyway, all this is probably just a question of personal preference. I feel that a more "daylight" spectrum is probably "better", in terms of growth and health, generally speaking, but have absolutely no evidence for that besides personal experience; some people prefer more blue.
I try not to buy from websites where everything is taken under actinics/blues, since that's not what my tank looks like. The above post about "trendy"/"fashionable" frags is a good one in my opinion, it's always a good idea to give them some time, to see what they really look like

 

[littleruttiger]

Ha, too many posts, too late at night. Most of the time, in most of my posts, I said most SPS. .

Haha!! Fair enough!!

I do feel your point is a good one - a lot/some of these corals (I have no idea about the percentages) are coming from deeper depths, and so blue light is indeed a "natural" look for them

 

[SteadyC]

What end of the spectrum that is.

If this is accurate, blue... which almost matches what Orpanek said too.
“The acronym PUR relates to Photosynthetic Usable Radiation. This is the spectral range of light that is most beneficial to coral growth and has two ranges; 400-550 (violet, blue, green), and 620-700 (present but much lower intensity). This also happens to be in the spectrum ranges where light intensity is the least sensitive to our eyes.”

 

[Surfandturf]

If this is accurate, blue... which almost matches what Orpanek said too.
“The acronym PUR relates to Photosynthetic Usable Radiation. This is the spectral range of light that is most beneficial to coral growth and has two ranges; 400-550 (violet, blue, green), and 620-700 (present but much lower intensity). This also happens to be in the spectrum ranges where light intensity is the least sensitive to our eyes.”

Exactly what I was hinting at.

Sent from my SM-G950U using REEF2REEF mobile app

 

[DanConnor]

I didn’t say all, I said most. While that is a gorgeous picture, and there are SPS corals that grow in shallow water, do you really believe that is as common as SPS coral fields that grow deeper, say 60 feet or deeper? Rhetorical question.

Have you ever been diving? the most dense corals are in shallow water. Too shallow of course and they will get broken by storms, but 10 to 70 feet is where most coral grows. It makes sense; they use light for energy- why be in deep water?

 

[SteadyC]

Have you ever been diving? the most dense corals are in shallow water. Too shallow of course and they will get broken by storms, but 10 to 70 feet is where most coral grows. It makes sense; they use light for energy- why be in deep water?

I have dove in Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives (these three were live aboards), Fiji, Belize, Florida, Bahamas, and Cozumel. I agree, there are lots of shallow areas that corals grow, but once you get out into the open ocean the coral fields are massive. Btw, im talking at a starting depth of 60 ish feet, and deeper. And also mostly talking about SPS. I took this conversation to be mostly about SPS, for whatever reason I fixated on that.

 

[SteadyC]

I have dove in Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives (these three were live aboards), Fiji, Belize, Florida, Bahamas, and Cozumel. I agree, there are lots of shallow areas that corals grow, but once you get out into the open ocean the coral fields are massive. Btw, im talking at a starting depth of 60 ish feet, and deeper. And also mostly talking about SPS. I took this conversation to be mostly about SPS, for whatever reason I fixated on that.

Picture I took in Maldives, below 60 feet, yes color balance is off

 

[rosshamsandwich]

???????

I don’t dive but ask any diver

The ocean is blue

The deeper down you get the bluer it is

Most of the high end stuff is found in deeper water

So actually blue is most natural for Corals

My Corals have never been healthier since switching to all blue light

If all blue is not healthy why do so many people do it that way nowadays?

This is especially apparent with those with very very expensive coral collections

If it was not healthy why would they risk a fortune on coral?

are you just quoting Jason Fox? because he's full of it
he lies so much it's disgusting

 

[Jamie7907]

What has he lied about?

 

[SteadyC]

All I’m saying is, I found this video educational. Lighting is covered at 24:30.

 

[ajm83]

So when people say "the light in the ocean is blue", does it really look like the pure intese blue we have from our lighting?

I mean, for example, I've never seen any pics from a documentary or photos from a real reef which look like those in that Jason Fox video in the post above.