Mike's 26g bow Mixed Reef - New goodies!

From the sand to the water line is 17.5''. My T5s are about 4'' above the water.

 

It might just take some time for them the acclimate. You could try placing them higher up in your tank to see if they might be happier there.

 

I think they like their spot though and are already acclimated. They look great and are fully inflated, but where blue should be is purple under my lights.

Guessing I don't have the spectrum for whatever pigment in the coral is creating that blue?

The clam I got looks exactly like the picture from my order, the blue and purple look great. But my clam was under their T5s, not their LEDs.

Can coral acquire different zooxanthellae to adapt to whatever lighting they are under? I've always wondered this.

 

Just curious but you are aware of the max size of your clams right? They get rather large

 

This is a very interesting question.

A lot of theories on this topic. I have heard that anemones will take on each others zooxanthellae. I believe this is true to a certain to degree. A bleached anemone will sometimes color up quicker when an unbleached anemone is introduced to the same system.


Different zooxanthellae provide different UV protection. A good example would be deeper water acropora versus acropora found under the most intense lighting on reef crest.


Also hobbyist have reported transfer of color from one type acropora to another.

Curt (aka Inwall) has a lot of insight regarding the sharing of zooxanthellae.

Would be an interesting thread. Dingo has some interesting thoughts on it as well.

 

I agree, if they were under LED then you will need Royal Blue LED to get the same look. Tank looks great.

 

I made sure to get a Crocea for this reason. Even though I hear it is one of the harder clams to keep, it grows to a maximum of 6'' in the wild.

John: Thank you! Your bulb change brought out the OCD with my lighting. Tried a bunch of different combos with what I had. No luck with the blue showing up and now I'm running 3 x Blue+ and 1 AB Special.

I like it, but don't love it. Must now figure out a way to convince my wife that I "need" a coral+ bulb or two.

Cheryl: I think I've seen you mention the anemone possibility, probably where I got the idea from. So to transfer from one invert to another, one would have to expel zooxanthellae and then another coral in the same tank absorb it? In theory of course, sounds interesting

 

I believe there is a natural sloughing of dinoflagellates/zooxanthellea. They can probably be expelled during waste and passive water movement from coral tissues.

 

I'm running 2x blue+ 1x coral+ and 1x abs. Very sharp coloring with just the right amount of blue.

 

Well tank is over five months old now. I recently got bit by the acro bug and have a few new adds and thought it would be a nice time for an update. My clam and trachy are now in my pico and are doing great without my cherub bothering them. Also just moved my acan lords over because my bulldozers of hermits kept messing with them.

Everything else is going great and I had to frag my xenia because it was just attaching itself to everything. Here are some new pics and a video.





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