Lighting for Monti Caps?

I just traded a fish for 2 frags of monti cap corals, and the guy who had them had them under 10,000K T5's... I also have T5's 2x39watt but my bulbs are only 6,000k... Will they be ok in my tank? The guy said that he fragged them from his mother colony and he had them near the top under his lights, I put them about mid-level in my tank under my lighting. Will they be ok?

 

I would put them pretty high, but under 6000k lighting they are not going to look their best. Probably survive, but will definitely lose color. Even under 10k SPS will lose a huge portion of its color. Perhaps swag the t5 bulbs you have for something along the lines of an ATI Blue Plus and an ATI Aqua Blue Special, will raise your overall spectrum to a 14k ish range and probably do well for coloring all of your stuff, assuming this is appealing to your eye.

More importantly would be to concentrate on ALK and Calcium staying balanced and at the right levels, as this will help you retain color with your lower kelvin bulb.

 

Yes, I have calcium and alk supliments that I put in the tank regularly... so hopefully they don't loose too much of their color. but under the 10,000K lighting they looked fantastic and he has had them for a long time and they didn't loose their color.

 

Kind of a long read so I will just take a quote from it, but here's some more info on lighting choice.

"Color Loss Of SPS Corals
Acropora (and SPS corals) lose color under less UV radiation, the nice colors that all reefers want is basically a sunscreen that protects the zooxanthellae algae that feed the coral through photosynthesis the "sunscreen" comes from mass amounts of UV radiation and light and this tells the zooxanthellae algae living within the corals tissue that it needs to protect itself from bleaching and then it becomes a bright color, When corals are exposed to a lesser amount of light the coral will become a more subdued color because the bright sunscreen is not necessary to protect the zooxanthellae algae from bleaching (or in some cases a different kalvin rating like 6K,10K,14K and 20K, usually the higher the kalvin rating the more colorful your SPS will be). For instance if an acropora is blue and purple in a tank lit by a 400 watt 20K metal halide light and then put in to a tank with a 150 watt 10K metal halide the color may be more subdued instantaneously or over time.

Some people don't like certain kalvin ratings for some reason, here is an over view of the metal halides kalvin rating for you.

6.5K, Usually never used for reefs but more likely a refugium or a freshwater planted tank. 6.5K lights will have a horrible yellow look almost a urine yellow look to them. 6.5K is more of a rare bulb to come across since it is more used for high end fresh water planted tanks (And those are rarer than an SPS dominant tank is). But they usually can be found on planted tank websites.

10K, Usually used for SPS reef tanks that want fast growth. 10K lights will help your SPS grow faster but the SPS colors will be subdued. 10K lights will have a yellow look to them but not as bad as 6.5K.

14K, 14K MH bulbs usually are the choice for most reefers since they have a nice crisp white look to them and give ok color and ok growth to SPS but the growth will not be as good as 10K bulbs and the color the coral becomes will not be as good as 20K bulbs. 14K is basically just a mix of the 10K and 20K bulb and gives the “Undecided” reefers a good alternative to 20K or 10K."


Credit to Acropora's Coral Guide - Nano-Reef.com Forums