Question on coral lighting and dieoff

[Stranded In Hawaii]

I've been given some Pocillopora coral from a friend. I do not have the same lighting as he did. I have a fish only set up and am running 20 watt bulbs. They are Perfectlite fixtures and basically used for standard aquariums.

My questions are "Do I have enough lighting for these coral?"

"If the coral polyps begin to die will it cause a nitrite spike?"

 

[pez]

IMO, you do not have enough lighting for this coral.

Any dead and or decaying matter will eventually be converted to nitrate. You didn't give any details about your system, so I would suspect any accumulated nitrate will remain in your system without being converted to nitrogen.

-Tom

 

[2poor2reef]

That coral is toast in yor system. Would be better to give it away to someone who had the lighting to keep it. Most fish-only tanks don't have the water movement that sps need either. And if you're not used to keeping the alk/calcium levels high and balanced (and you typically don't need to in a FO system) then that will be a problem also. My opinions only.