growing Coralline Algae under only blue actinic lighting

Discussion in 'General Reef Topics' started by Eddie, Jan 6, 2013.

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  1. Eddie

    Eddie Flamingo Tongue

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2010
    Messages:
    116
    Location:
    Vancouver, WA
    Hi Folks,
    Has anyone had success growing Coralline Algae under only blue actinic lighting (460nm variety). "I have a box of rocks" I am maintaining from the breakdown and selling off my 90 gallon reef tank. I plan on keeping the 200lbs or so of live rock (the most expensive part of my next setup down the road) So I don't have to reinvest in LR at that time.
    It is all doing fine. It is in a ~60 gallon "flat" tank I used to use as my fuge. There is a SCWD on the bottom, and a heater. There are a couple of Hydor Korillias for upper and mid flow, a BH90 skimmer and (if you will please excuse this) just a bio-wheel type mechanical filter (no wheel) that I have to still change out almost daily from silt as the tank is bottomless.(no substrate),
    There is a file fish that keeps any aiptasia in check (I saw a few, so added the fish...all gone). There is a cleaner shrimp, a fire shrimp and a 6-line wrasse I also kept. I know what you are thinking, but it's been months, and I have seen the cleaner shrimp jump onto the file fish to clean, and have seen the fire shrimp attack it a couple of times. This is a matted file fish, and despite it's occasionally reported tendency to pick at inverts all the time, this doesn't apply so much to the Matted FileFish as opposed to most all others species of Filefish..That being said, I think I got lucky with this one in particular, very benign.
    But I digress, the live rock lighting issue is what is on my mind. I am wanting to switch to all actinic blue on the T5's, with an LED spot on the few corals I see that should be kept, a pink birds-nest frag that stayed on a rock for example (You can see the Mother bird-nest colony i parted with now on display at Saltwater FantaSeas in Portland Oregon,just off Sandy Blvd and 107th actually. It is a beautiful specimen).
    Again, back to the point; 460nm Actinic blue light and high current for coralline algae growth, has anyone tried that?
    Thanks,
    -Greg
     
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  3. Vinnyboombatz

    Vinnyboombatz Giant Squid

    Joined:
    Oct 24, 2010
    Messages:
    6,344
    Location:
    Dunnellon, Florida
    I am currently growing coraline in my frag tank under actinics.;)