Dana Riddle
2500 Club Member
- Review score
- +0 /0 /-0
Staff member
R2R Supporter
R2R Excellence Award
Expert Contributor
Article Contributor
Build Thread Contributor
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2011
- Messages
- 3,162
- Reaction score
- 7,577
- Review score
- +0 /0 /-0
- Location
- Dallas, Georgia
I see messages implying PAR values exceeding known Saturation Points are OK. In many cases they are not - a coral can be bleached and it is impossible to visually judge this. A non-intrusive chlorophyll meter is needed unless one wants to sacrifice a portion of the coral and extract photopigments for analyses. As far as I know, I am the only hobbyists owning one of the $3,000 meters. If you have one (Opti-Sciences) please drop me a line. Generation of reflective proteins might add some protection against excessive light. Perhaps some of the fluorescent proteins do as well. In the case of branching corals, the exposed areas can be bleached while the shaded portions have a healthy zoox population.