Lighting Requirements - How true is it?

[jdeb101]

About a month ago I setup a nano tank at my office. I used a piece of LR that was in my sump without light for a year and funny thing is there's three really small Kenya trees growing on it! I know these things are super hardy and "impossible" to kill, but really they survive that long without light!? They craziest thing is liveaquaria claims they need "moderate to high light".

 

[STiTCH87]

I can say for certain they do not need "moderate to high" lighting, but light in general is needed for it to grow. However, I do believe it can survive at basically equal size without light.
I had a toadstool do the same thing. Cycled it in a bucket with dead rock, high ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, no lights for 2-3 months, then in a blacked out sump for another 2-3 months, then I bought a sump light one day (didn't know I had a toadstool btw) and within a few days it popped up out of nowhere vibrant green and the size of my thumb, lol.

Meanwhile I bleached some "high light" SPS with my LEDs at 40% on that same tank, hahaha.

 

[jdeb101]

I can say for certain they do not need "moderate to high" lighting, but light in general is needed for it to grow. However, I do believe it can survive at basically equal size without light.
I had a toadstool do the same thing. Cycled it in a bucket with dead rock, high ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates, no lights for 2-3 months, then in a blacked out sump for another 2-3 months, then I bought a sump light one day (didn't know I had a toadstool btw) and within a few days it popped up out of nowhere vibrant green and the size of my thumb, lol.

Meanwhile I bleached some "high light" SPS with my LEDs at 40% on that same tank, hahaha.

haha well ya, I had a funny thing with toadstool as well. I had a small loose frag of one appear not long ago, the thing is pretty much completely white, but alive and polyps extended! It must've been under all my rockwork.

 

[flyfisherman]

Nothing is absolute in this hobby

 

[Newguy]

And here I am fighting to keep things alive and grow and you guys grow stuff in dark buckets and sumps. Haha.

 

[jdeb101]

And here I am fighting to keep things alive and grow and you guys grow stuff in dark buckets and sumps. Haha.

Oh trust me I've had my fair share of deaths. Of course what I don't care to keep alive is what thrives.