Low light/High light for coloration. Why?
- Thread starter Gomer
- Start date
tuberider
Guest
I'll try and "shed some light" on this very complex question, no full dissertation though.
Tony the "technical mechanism" is simple.... sugar. As you are aware there are several varieties of zooxanthellae that corals utilize to produce sugar. Your example of a coral turning brown in lower light is one of a coral that has had to produce more zooxanthellae to produce more sugar to sustain the animal. The opposite occurs when there is too much light, of course we call that bleaching.
That's the general "simple" part of the equation, of course you can't have anything in this hobby without a variable.
Nutrients, zooxanthellae need nutrients in order to survive, like any plant they utilize nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, iron etc. if those values are low then that can lead to bleaching problems as well, even in what we would consider to be medium light conditions. Again the opposite is true when you raise nutrient levels, your corals can brown out.
In reality we try to ride the fine line of providing enough fuel to create sugar production (energy), while trying not to provide so much that it is detrimental to the coral, along with providing enough light to the coral to make the coral go into protection mode and color up (especially with most SPS)
Hope that was clear and accurate, and no Tony I don't have any "fancy word papers" to steer you towards.
BTW, if anyone reads anything incorrect please correct me, it's all IME stuff here.
Tony the "technical mechanism" is simple.... sugar. As you are aware there are several varieties of zooxanthellae that corals utilize to produce sugar. Your example of a coral turning brown in lower light is one of a coral that has had to produce more zooxanthellae to produce more sugar to sustain the animal. The opposite occurs when there is too much light, of course we call that bleaching.
That's the general "simple" part of the equation, of course you can't have anything in this hobby without a variable.
Nutrients, zooxanthellae need nutrients in order to survive, like any plant they utilize nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, iron etc. if those values are low then that can lead to bleaching problems as well, even in what we would consider to be medium light conditions. Again the opposite is true when you raise nutrient levels, your corals can brown out.
In reality we try to ride the fine line of providing enough fuel to create sugar production (energy), while trying not to provide so much that it is detrimental to the coral, along with providing enough light to the coral to make the coral go into protection mode and color up (especially with most SPS)
Hope that was clear and accurate, and no Tony I don't have any "fancy word papers" to steer you towards.
BTW, if anyone reads anything incorrect please correct me, it's all IME stuff here.