Catarina Mendes^1,2 , Cátia Fernandes¹ , André  Moreira¹ , João Chambel^1,2,3 , Paulo Maranhão¹ , Sérgio Leandro¹

1 MARE - Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, ESTM, Intituto Politécnico de Leiria, 2520-641 Peniche, Portugal
2 AQUASPROSEA, Lda, Santuário Nossa Senhora dos Remédios, 2520-641 Peniche, Portugal
3 ADN - Aquarium Design, Lda, Travessa 1º de Maio, Nº 9 2630-433 Cardosas, Portugal
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2017, Vol. 7, No. 8   doi: 10.5376/ija.2017.07.0008
Received: 13 Mar., 2017    Accepted: 08 Jun., 2017    Published: 20 Jun., 2017

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Mendes C., Fernandes C., Moreira A., Chambel J., Maranhão P., and Leandro S., 2017, Effect of LEDs light spectrum on success of fragmentation and growth of leather coral Sarcophyton spp., 7(8): 57-63 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2017.07.0008)

The increasing demand for soft corals is reflected on the high attention of the scientific community during the last decades, with several studies focus on production techniques and optimization of coral husbandry. However, coral culture success is influenced by the interaction of different factors, such as water movement, temperature, nutrients, heterotrophic feeding and light conditions. Light plays a key role in the growth, reproduction and physiology of corals that host phototrophic symbionts and it has been found that the photoresponse of corals is species-specific. Several studies have already focused on the effects of irradiance on coral and its algal symbionts. Although, only a few works have investigated the role of the spectral quality of light on coral photobiology, physiology and growth. In the present study, we hypothesize that light spectrum can influence the growth performance of Leather Coral Sarcophyton spp.when exposed at identical intensities of photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). To test our hypothesis we evaluated the effect of contrasting light spectra with an identical PAR of 70 ± 10 μmol quantam⁻².s⁻¹emitted by T8 fluorescent lamps (used as a control treatment) and three different colours of Light Emitting Diode (LED), white, blue and red. It was evaluated survival and growth rates of Sarcophyton spp., an important soft coral in the marine aquarium trade and for the bioprospecting of marine natural compounds. Replicated coral fragments were obtained from two mother colonies and were exposed to the four types of light spectrum for a period of 30 days. At the end of the experiment period, the results showed 100% of survival in coral fragments, and specific growth rate (SGR) of 0,055 ± 0,09%/day in control group and 0,091 ± 0,019 %/day, 0,210 ± 0,031%/day and 0,380 ± 0,245%/day in, white, blue and red light, respectively. Moreover, in all treatments at end of experiment the zooxanthellae density was ±, ± and ± for white, blue and red light spectrum, respectively showing that all light promotes conditions for zooxanthellae growth. The results also showed a positive role of use a specific light spectrum in coral growth, namely blue and red spectrum. The use of light with specific light spectrum that increasing the growth and health of corals will minimizing the production costs, increasing the feasibility of ex situ production of ornamental corals and this study identify the best LED`s light spectrum for the growth of the leather coral Sarcophyton spp.

Coral propagation; Sarcophyton spp; Coral growth; Marine ornamentals; Light spectrum