I am a newbie. Need advice

[BarraCudaTM]

i went to this place be4.. boss are not friendly.. cannot ask too many question on marine .. cos he will get irritated because, he is selling tropical fishes!!

why are you asking about chicken with the pork seller in the first place?

[backlash]

Ermm... well, I got my coralife 10000k lights for my 2 ft tank for $60 but I heard other places sell it slightly cheaper.

With regards to your anemone... I too feel that it's pretty risky having it in your tank because it might move about and cause problems... BUT if the lighting is high and it hasn't moved alot since the time you placed it inside your tank, it probably IS a happy anemone and will not move about too much. Besides, it would be a pity removing it since your clownfish has already bonded with it. It doesn;t always happen, you know.

With regards to the filter... All I have to say is that I've been using Eheim for awhile now and it's a good brand. Just remember to remove the charcoal after it has served it purporse and run its course. Or Else.........

And yeah finally you should really really read up on the cycle. If your tanks's not cycled properly, animals will die nomatter how good the equipment. You can use a biostarter like ammovec to speed up your cycle (since your tank's already filled with lovely critters) and your pets will be happier w/o the presence of nitrites.

Hope I helped somewhat... All the best and Happy New Year.

[dodo]

The rest of the spectrum making white is used less and white is mostly for viewing pleasure.

I thk it should be the other way round... White used LESS and MOSTLY for viewing purpose then y are we blasting all our whites and keep the blue to the minimum????

e.g...if we r using 4PL...y do we utilised 3 PL for white and only 1 PL for blue? if white is REALLY for viewing purpose...i rather utilised 3 PL for blue instead as it served more benficial to the corals.

I still maintain that a tank should have more white lite than blue lite...never seen a tank whereby blue light outnumbered white lite

[Creetin]

I tot both the white and blue lights are necessary. to provide the spectrum of light needed i tink....

[Sinn]

i tot white is the necessary one and blue is just for viewing pleasure (floracence)

[Tanzy]

OK guys better clear this up. Blue light as in actinic 03 has a peak at 420nm which is just at the absorption peak of chlorophyll. This light can be used directly by the zooxanthellae for photosynthesis and also stimulate fluorescent in some accessory pigments. It is thought that since under water, blue light is the dominant colour because of water filtering most of the other spectrum, coral zooxanthellae only use blue light for photosynthesis, but this is found to be untrue because the chlorophylls and other photosynthetic pigments are similar to the ones found in terresterial plants, meaning that it can not only use light at 420nm but light in other spectrum as well except green.

Actinics are there to boost the fluorescent and provide more blue simply for aesthetic reasons. Corals can get along find without actinic but won't hurt them if you gave them some.

[backlash]

Yeah... so technically white light (with a good spectrum; 10000k or so) is better for corals since corals will use more than one spectrum of light and that's why most aquarists use more white... and use blue only for aesthetic reasons... to let their corals glow and stuff.

But actually I do believe that corals CAN survive solely on actnic lighting if the wattage of the lighting is enough. Since only actnic blue light is able to enter into the deeper parts of the oceans after all the other spectrums have been cancelled out.

I have had store owners telling me that corals cannot survive solely on actnic though...

So... which do you guys think is true? Corals CAN survive solely on blue, right?

[backlash]

Yeah... so technically white light (with a good spectrum; 10000k or so) is better for corals since corals will use more than one spectrum of light and that's why most aquarists use more white... and use blue only for aesthetic reasons... to let their corals glow and stuff.

But actually I do believe that corals CAN survive solely on actnic lighting if the wattage of the lighting is enough. Since only actnic blue light is able to enter into the deeper parts of the oceans after all the other spectrums have been cancelled out.

I have had store owners telling me that corals cannot survive solely on actnic though...

So... which do you guys think is true? Corals CAN survive solely on blue, right?

[BarraCudaTM]

if you can get enough lux of actinic, maybe can

but yr tank will look so blue that all colors will be washed out!

[Tanzy]

How many watts of actinic can you put across the tank? Corals won't do very well under all actinics compared to the same wattage in 10000K.

[hongqixian]

Thing is, i read in the Dennerle manual (freshwater plants) on why red is better for freshwater plants, because nuisance algae are more primitive and better adapted to use the blue spectrum than higher plants which can adapt to using more red light.

Zooxanthellae sound to be the same as nuisance algae, but I haven't any idea how true this is since the sun never shone actinic blue on pond algae before.

Justt food for thought.