24 hour lighting test

[dmurb]

I run my sump on a 24 hour light cycle. My refugium light is on 24/7. I wanted to know the effects this would have on corals. I give away 2, 1 gallon freezer bags of cheato every week. So i gave away all my cheato except for a small hand full and cleared out my refugium. I made a few frags of different corals just to see what would happen. My light is a 165wfull spectrum led. I made a frag of somewhere over the Rainbow mille. Tricolor valida. Cream tenius with blue tips. Purple with maroon polyps stag. Ora pearl berry. Copps hulk mille. And last was a green with purple rim Monti cap. So my test only lasted 2 weeks. I wanted to see the effects of 24 hour lighting on corals because of what it does to my cheato. So I happen to look into my refugium last night and saw that the colors on these corals are extremely pale and dull. After looking at these a little longer I see that the Copps has completely Burned out. I have moved these all back to my main display to get back on a normal light cycle. I'm not positive on what was happening but I'm assuming it has to do with photosynthesis.

 

[MrX]

Coral can only absorb so much light... you could increase your light intensity and burn out the coral quicker, or you could just increase the light duration, as you did, and get the same results.

You overexposed the corals, they couldn't process it, and bleached. I think the technical phrase is that they expelled zooanthelle.

This is why people are told they should acclimate corals when changing lighting types, changing bulbs, etc. Even moving a new coral into your tank people suggest you start it low (in the sand) and slowly move it up to it's final home on your little chunk o'reef.

Just curious why you thought exposing the corals to 24/7 light would work like you think it is with the chaeto? In nature there are day night cycles for a reason. Over millions/billions of years organisms have adapted to these cycles. Making a sudden change, even months/years would be a 'sudden change', would almost always have a negative impact.

 

[dmurb]

I have a large refugium that runs 24 hour lights on I've had it this way for a year and my cheato grows constantly. I have to remove a couple of 1 gallon freezer bags every week. I just wanted to see what would happen with the corals

 

[dz6t]

Photosynthesis have two reactions:
In the photosynthetic light reactions pathway, energy of light is conserved as as "high energy" phosphoanhydride bonds of ATP, and as reducing power of NADPH.

In the photosynthetic "dark reactions" pathway, the free energy of cleavage of ~P bonds of ATP, and reducing power of NADPH, are used to fix and reduce CO2 to form carbohydrate

 

[dz6t]

There are examples of plants can be lit 24/7, but coral use the by-products (carbohydrate) of the "dark reaction" pathway from algae, so a dark period is needed for coral.

 

[dmurb]

Ic. I just wanted to see the effects of what would happen. But thank you for the better knowledge of why it happens. I have moved the corals back to a normal lighting schedule for about 4-5 days now. They are doing much better. All have fully extended polyps. Colors are still faded but better

 

[reefstarter]

cool experiment though , what dong just said gives me an Idea now , a way to better utilize the dark period and allow the corals to better "eat" Carbs not sure what I will do yet have to think it through

 

[dz6t]

Such as dosing carbs?

 

[reefstarter]

maybe , but not to create bacteria like when dosing Carbon I know its kind of the same thing . not sure there is much to this yet

 

[dz6t]

One idea is to dose sugar, it is different than dosing Vodka or vinegar (food for bacteria), I think coral may be able to eat them directly.