Poci, you can check out CanadaWest's BTA. It looks just like everyone else's. He recently upgraded to MH so maybe he'll be be kind enough to show us what it looks like now.

My BTAs look nearly identical to Sam's, and photos are available on my website (link below in signature line). I will try to get some updated photos posted in a couple days, but both of mine are HUGE now compared to the older photos on the website. The website photos are pre-MH.

In regards to the MH upgrade, it hasn't really affected the BTAs as the MH is mounted in the center of the tank, and the BTAs are off to the left side under a combo of 2 NO 6500K lamps and 2 VHO atinics on my Icecap 660, which was the lighting the BTAs have been living under (and successfully I might add) for the previous 9 months before the MH addition.

I think the increased expansion I've noticed over the past few months could be due to the BTAs enjoying the MH intensity coming from the center of the tank, but neither BTA has bothered to move under the MH lamp in the 6 months I've had it running, so that leads me to believe they do not need to be directly underneath it to be happy, otherwise they would have moved there by now, right? :|

And as an aside, neither of my BTAs have ever shown dominant "bubble tips" since I've had them, and that's been 15 months for the parent and 10 or so months for the split. Both continue to grow at a rapid pace and look very healthy. Both are also active hosts to my pair of Percula clowns, so perhaps hosting is a factor in non-bubble-tip formation?

Just opinions based on observations I have made of the animals in my own tank, as I am certainly not an expert in anemone species.

LOL, well, poc, obviously I have been hopelessly brainwashed by seeing so many of the damn things being called that ! :lol: And no, you will have to pay for your BTA clone just like everyone else :D

Here's an interesting addition:

and article

is this going to be a while? :shock: :lol:

Steve :wink:

Emily, What are the chances of you getting a nice close up of your bta? I would like to see the zooxanthalle structure in the tentacles. Also if Bob could do the same.

OK Jamie this is the best I can do. I only have a HP 315. Four pics at 640x480. The last one was taken in daylight, and supplemented with flash.
BTW you can see the blunted ends on some tentacles, and the column is smooth. Thus it should be E. quadricolor ?
http://www.therockies.com/rcipema/anemone2.jpg
http://www.therockies.com/rcipema/anemone3.jpg
http://www.therockies.com/rcipema/anemone4.jpg
http://www.therockies.com/rcipema/anemoneone.jpg

OOPS...

http://members.shaw.ca/bhadford1/WhatThe.jpg

Guess it's bedtime...I'll try tomorrow for a macro.

Smaller pics Bob...

I posted that one big picture because I do not have macro capabilities, but it was better deleted. :) :roll:

The trouble is one question leads to another, and some conclusions lead to others. I can't figure out how to ask without the post getting too long. But here is the first of a number of questions.

Is there any relation between degrees Kelvin, and actual illumination (Lux)?

I ask this because I am confused. Light at noon over the tropical oceans is about 150,000 lux, and 5500K (John Tullock). As you go deeper into the ocean the shorter wavelenghts get filtered out eventually leaving blue, but the Kelvin goes up. The question is this blue light of lesser intensity or not (lux again). When we get this straightened ot I will tell you where this is leading. :?

tell me about it Bob :)

anyways to kinda answer your question about kelven and lux, the temp of a bulb is made up of dfferent amount of various colors, the highest in Lux (or intensity being green) so the more green a bulb has in its make up the more intensity the bulbs has.. whare as the more "blue" or "red" the less intensity. that is why the Iwasaki is so high as it has a large portion of the green spectrum.

Steve

Hi,

The relationship between lux and kelvin isn't very crystal clear. Lux is a measure of lumens per square meter. Lumens is the measure of intensity at a wavelength of ~550-600 nm (or green).

Kelvin colour is not really related to the lux. Let's suppose that an MH only produces three spikes of light - one at green, blue and yellow. It is fairly common for MH and fluorescents to do this due to the nature of the technology. If the blue spike moves to the violet...the kevlin increases...but the intensity stays roughly the same. The kevlin increases because the averaged wavelength of the light output is shorter -- which means a higher kelvin light. In other words...the light output has shifted to a blue tone. The green spike is what determines the lux intensity and the green spike stayed the same in both cases.

As for why the water is blue. This has to do with many things. This includes the reflection for the sky and blue-green algae in the water. But, RO/DI water is blue too ...this is actually a chemical property. Water is only semi-transparent at visible light wavelenghts. Its semi-transparency gets worse with longer wavelengths. So, long wavelengths get absorbed faster than short wavelengths in water. Hence, the blue light, which have shorter wavelengths, go through the water deeper than red lights. A similar argument can be made for why the sky is blue.

Hope that helps.

- Victor.

LOL, what a thread.....

Anyway...pic as requested...this probably doesn't offer much, I can get different pics with different lighting and different camera settings...



http://members.shaw.ca/bhadford1/BTAOct8.jpg

Hi,

Okay...let me try this again since I totally missed the entire question...

Does intensity change with depth (in nature) ? Yes. At deeper and deeper water depths, more and more red light is filter. The yellow/green is not as filtered as red. And the blue/violet is the least filtered. To answer the third question, yes the blue is of lesser intensity; however, the filtering effects of 10m of water is not too bad for blue light. I would say that 75% of the blue still makes it through 10m of water. Red/Yellow and green are non-existant. In this example, depth does change the kelvin of the lighting -- deeper equals higher kelvin and lower intensity (PAR for example). For MH and NOs, it is not quite the same story because the light spectrum is in bands while sunlight is full spectrum.

- Victor.

Thanks for that Victor. That to me leads to an inescapable conclusion, (which was confirmed by more reading). That conclusion is that we only need to supply FULL SPECTRUM lighting for the biological health of the creatures we keep. This needs to be of adequate intensity. Full spectrum (5500K) has all the wavelengths, and is all the creatures need. It seems to me that all the actinic supplementation we do is for our own benefit, as we have eyes and corals do not. There might be a downside to just having high intensity full spectrum lights. That is it seems nuisance algaes do better when all wavelengths are present. That however, is just my own obsevation, and may be incorrect. :D
Actually when I look back to very early in this thread, I am only confirming what Steve has already said. :D

Quote from Steve Tyree's Book RBSC

A light field that was primarily blue would mirror what the corals experience in clean ocean waters at depths from 10 meters and deeper. At depths from 5 to 10 meters, the light is mostly blue/green.

The zooxanthellae within these corals all contain caroteniods which only absorb blue light and of course also contain the chlorophyll's that absorb much more blue light then red.

And one more.

The study also determined that low levels of blue light can acheive rates of light-saturated photosynthesis(peak operation) that are equivalent to those reached by corals grown in full sunlight.

Of course you are indubitably right, but the point I am making is that FULL SPECTRUM light contains that blue light it is just that the rest of the spectrum is NOT being filtered out by the water. Thus the conclusion I have come to is that blue supplementation is not required for the health of the corals. It just pleases our eyes. :D

I think that Jamie is saying that the more blue you pump into your tank the better. But to get a pleasing color to your eye you have to add other colors of the spectrum. Blue is deffinatly most needed for skelital growth and a healthy zoz population.... :lol:

Here, read this as opposed to getting information written for hobbyists:

http://www.cbl.cees.edu/~mattia/SMPr...ackground.html

Bob,
What I'm reading is that the coral is using the blue light. There for if your supplement blue light the coral is using it. I don't think it gets any clearer. If I'm going to put a bulb over my reef I want it to have the spectrum that is most usable by the animals I keep. And by this statement it's blue light.

The study also determined that low levels of blue light can acheive rates of light-saturated photosynthesis(peak operation) that are equivalent to those reached by corals grown in full sunlight.

Hi,

Ah...its the blue light special theory. :D

But seriously, I think its a pretty nice theory. Only problem is....how do you know your lights are the right blue and violet ? If you have compared the spectrum of brand X MH with the nature's spectrum of light at 15m, then you'll realize...I don't even think they are similar at all. The banding effects you get from MH cause all sorts of problems and it leaves certain wavelength with very low blue-violet light. If the Zoox happen to like a specific wavelength that your lamps have a null ...opps.

Blue light special works pretty well for some corals...and not so well for other corals. Anybody heard of a bunch of reefers say that their Toadstool's colours are beyond belief when they switch from Iwasaki to Radiums ? In the same breath...you hear another reefer saying that his blue tip acro is more happy in is Radiums than his Iwasaki. Yah..I know its a extreme example...but seriousily, some corals are affect by the blue light special while others are not. So why is this ?

My personal theory is that corals will change to what every conditions are present in the tank. It is natural for organisms to do this since it is written in to their DNA. Some corals are able to adapt and survive, while others die because they can not. When we apply blue light to a purple monster, it changes to something we find rather pleasing. There are many types of pigments and zoox on a coral. My theory is that certain light bands cause certain pigments and zooz to dominate. So, blue light causes a group of Zoozs to dominate and it is what causes the purpleness in the purple monster. Green light will cause another group to dominate and so on. So...does this mean certain groups of Zoox (or colour) mean better health. I don't know, but I am leaning towards it does not. If the same number of energy producing Zoox that are in the brown Purple monster and the "true" purple monster, then both corals should be just as happy. The only difference is colour...like our skin colour -- okay maybe that's going a little too far, but I think you get the idea.

So those are my thoughts...what are you thoughts on this subject ?

- Victor.

Victor,

Your comparing two different things here. Coral pigment is different then algae pigment. What was stated in my above post was the effect of blue light on zooxanthallae not coral pigment. Which is a whole nother issue that is not well understood. The type and intensity of light will cause different shades of brown in the coral do to how the zooxanthallae react to the given light. This is why people with low light reefs seem to have darker corals then those with higher lighting. I know other things play a part as well but we are talking lighting here, so I'll stick with that. I'm sure we all agree no matter what you do with your lighting you won't pull purples out of a toadstool. I suppose that the purple monster your refering to could very well be happy or healthly wether it's brown or purple. What does matter though is that it has a healthy zooxanthallae population to feed the coral in question. And IMO if the PM was in good health and growing it would have no chose but to be purple.


Also I think an Iwasaki has a much larger spike in blue light then a 5500k.

Perhaps I'm getting lost in my opinion of coral health through appearance and growth rate. Because corals don't speak I have no other judge. I do feel that the health of the zooxanthallae through reproduction and byproducts determin the health of the coral. So healthy and growing zoox=healthy and growing coral. Do corals need to grow I'm not sure. I would assume though that in the wild they would disappear with so many predators if the did not grow. Whats a healthy growth rate? I'm not totally sure.


Bob's thought was all the corals need as far as spectrum would be in a 5500k bulb. I geuss I would agree with that. As its been done and is being done. Is it the best? IMO no but I geuss I wasn't asked that.

I know we are beating this to death, but I feel that we may not be understanding what I am saying.

My point is that when the sun shines on the water the coral "sees" blue.
When you put a full spectrum bulb over the water the coral "sees" blue
When you put a blue bulb over the water the coral "sees"blue

The above statement refer to deep water. :)