Does anyone know if Acros are placed near each other and over time touch will they burn each other? Do they need to be placed high in tank?
Very much depends on you lighting and yes they well war with one another, plus they are some of the most demanding for water quality and chem levels and the dang things may bleach for no apparent reason, just like they do in the wild.
I would not let corals touch each other. If they begin to get too close, frag that piece off. Then you have another coral to trade or sell. Coral placement in your tank depnds on your lights. I have several corals directly under 400 watt Mh bulbs and 250 watt MHs. What type of lights do you have? How deep is your tank? Sorry, I must have also sent this in a pm to you. Getting tired not paying attention to what I am doing.
I have the Marineland Light Fix. It has two 150 watt MH, four 54 watt Blue T5s and the four moon lights.
That is a nice light set up. Should allow you to have a variety of corals depending on the depth of the tank and your aquascaping. Acros as well as almost every coral will war with another not of the same species, or even the same colony in some instances. The most dominate coral will overpower the weaker one if left to their own devices. I like Ralph's suggestion of fraging off the piece that's too close to another coral. As the corals grow and your tank matures you will find this is an ever changing aquascape that has to be "trimmed". Thats part of the process with this hobby. So put me in line for the frags you need to remove and I'll do the same.
With your tank being that deep, the corals should be up toward the top some. I would recommend a minimum of 175 watt preferably 250 watt MHs. Some here would also suggest T-5s.
31" is deep for 150's, you need atleast 250's, so mount the acros up high on the reef and the others down lower.
Ralph I don't know about T5's, I think 31" is too deep, I love them in shallower water but I think with that depth you would end up doing the same thing as with the 150's.
im not sure about the actual par values at that depth but all my corals that are at the bottom open up during the t-5 phase of my lighting. im still waiting on the par meter so i can test my values.
Opening up and being enough light is different, and acros are different then others requiring strong light to flourish and colorup. Acros well tend to grow upward and not upward and outward if they don't have enough light. Take my 4 ft T5, it uses 54 watt bulbs and if you have a 8 bulb fixture you are producing 432 watts of light and divide that by 2' which is what most consider the spread for coverage you are talking 216 watts of light per 2 ft. If I'm not mistaken most say 250 MH's are good down to about 30". Unless you can get more bulbs across I would say around 30" would be getting about as deep as I would want to run T5's as a sole light source and even then I would have to see what happened before I would be sold on it. My depth is only 21" of water and I had to prove it to myself that the acros would grow right under T5's and so far so good.
I am starting a 75 reef. I have a 6 bulb T5 fixture at 320 watts. I am planning to house SPS, LPS, Zoo's and possibly a Clam or two. My tank is 21" deep and was wondering about placement. I know that the LPS should be placed on the lower levels of the tank. The only SPS I have experience with is the Montipora Digitata. I am wanting to keep a variety of each.
Bigman 21" deep, 320w of light which is 160w every 2ft of tank length you should be fine. acros require btight light, monti's are cool in the sense that they can color up differently on how high you place them. They well grow pretty much any level. Some softies like leathers, Zenias and such well do good under bright lights as well as lower.
