Peacock lighting
 

Hi all i have a kessil 160 tuna blue and a hydra 26hd, are either of ghese ok for peacock mantis or too bright?

I think they would be too bright, peacocks are prone to shell disease and aren’t very active in bright lights. If possible, try to use no lights at all.

Keep them low and towards the blue end of the spectrum.


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Ok no problem. Id like to keep it with doft coral, possibly some lps, what light units are recommended.

Shell rot is dependent on the water quality of the aquarium. We don't know what exactly the conditions are to cause it, but we do know improper water conditions will both make it harder for the mantis to fight off disease, and nitrates/phosphates often help bacterial growth.

Lighting also affects this in some way. We don't know if the fungas/bacteria is photosynthetic, but we do know Mantis Shrimp get stressed out if they're exposed to high lighting for long periods of time, in which the stress can lead to said immune problems.

Theoretically, if you have the water quality really good (like SPS good), and you provide the O. Scyllarus with the proper burrowing conditions, you should be able to get away with a soft coral tank.

IIRC one of the longest living peacocks was in a reef tank fwiw, but that's not implying its best conditions are not dark.

I can't answer much on the lighting units, but LED reef breeders are doing my toadstool rather nicely for years now.

In general, lower lights are better for a Peacock in that I have noticed more hesitancy to be active/interactive when the lights are extremely bright, especially with LEDs. That said, I had a Peacock in a LED lit tank for over a year without health problems.

Take my opinion for whatever it may be worth, but lighting will not cause shell rot. Bad water quality is more likely to lead to shell rot in which case it is a good idea to turn the lights off at that point to slow/prevent the spread of disease. As Calappidae mentioned, water quality is far more important.

But if you want your Peacock to be as active as possible, low lights are generally better. I had the most success with a single bulb T8 fixture (similar to T5 but larger diameter bulb). Agree that the blue end of the spectrum is best.