What a difference lighting can make!!

[ReeferMatt]

Just looking through some old pics and couldn't believe what a difference going from 10k's and actinics to blue plus can make. I was running t5 10k (4) and actinic (2). Now running blue+ (4) purple+ (1) and GE 6,500k (1).


10k
View attachment 9339
Blue+ (4 months later)
View attachment 9338

 

[Ghosty]

What's blue+/purple+?

 

[Andrew_bram]

Those blue + are nice aren't they

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[ReeferMatt]

they are t5 bulbs made by ATI, great bulbs!! It's a matter of spectrum, say you have 10k MH, then switch to 20k MH would be a similar effect.

 

[reefmaster719]

Love them. Great par also.

 

[Smiley]

i used to run 2 aquablue specials and 2 blue+ on my old 4 bulb setup. Best color ever. When i stepped up to 6 bulb, i went with 3 aquablue specials, 2 blue+, and a coral+. The coral+ helped bring out the oranges better.

 

[Cake_Boss]

What's blue+/purple+?

Bulb colors. Blue plus and purple plus

I like it better with the new combo!

 

[Ghosty]

they are t5 bulbs made by ATI, great bulbs!! It's a matter of spectrum, say you have 10k MH, then switch to 20k MH would be a similar effect.

Ah cool, wasn't sure what brand, and if they were a certain kind of Actinic, or a special type of 'white' bulb. On a 48" 4xT5 setup (nothing else, no MH's), would a blue+, purple+, aquablue special, and true actinic (or two actinics) be too blue?

 

[Cake_Boss]

That is up to you. It might be too blue for you, not blue enough for me.

 

[ReeferMatt]

Ah cool, wasn't sure what brand, and if they were a certain kind of Actinic, or a special type of 'white' bulb. On a 48" 4xT5 setup (nothing else, no MH's), would a blue+, purple+, aquablue special, and true actinic (or two actinics) be too blue?

The problem I see with that would be that you would only get the actinic light in dusk/dawn. The other bulbs will over power them durring day mode, this is why I no longer use actinic.

 

[JNG]

I have almost the same combo in bulbs, I also like the blue plus ATI's

 

[reefmaster719]

Blue plus for actinic and coral plus for daylight.

 

[ReeferMatt]

Ah cool, wasn't sure what brand, and if they were a certain kind of Actinic, or a special type of 'white' bulb. On a 48" 4xT5 setup (nothing else, no MH's), would a blue+, purple+, aquablue special, and true actinic (or two actinics) be too blue?

So I Decided that the GE 6500k bulb might not be providing a beneficial spectrum of light, seems from my reading that coral do not really benefit from less than 10k. I also miss the crazy colors actinics provide in the dusk dawn slot, so I swapped it out for an actinic I had laying around. The tank is definitely dimmer, as the ge 6500k has ridiculous par. I will try it for a few days and see if I like it, or if I can notice the actinic at all during day setting.

 

[jahmic]

So I Decided that the GE 6500k bulb might not be providing a beneficial spectrum of light, seems from my reading that coral do not really benefit from less than 10k. I also miss the crazy colors actinics provide in the dusk dawn slot, so I swapped it out for an actinic I had laying around. The tank is definitely dimmer, as the ge 6500k has ridiculous par. I will try it for a few days and see if I like it, or if I can notice the actinic at all during day setting.

If you're getting any measurable PAR from the 6500K bulb...then I would think that you are getting at least some benefit to coral in the form of growth; I don't think it's entirely true that coral don't benefit from anything less than 10k temp bulbs. The sun gives off ~5500K temp, and reds and yellows are not filtered out until passing through greater depths of water than you often find corals growing in lagoons.

As far as corals go, the main benefit you'd be missing out on would be visual...as coral colors tend to look more pleasing to the eye under bluer light; the more UV spectrum available, the more fluorescence you get. 6500K bulbs are shifted away from the UV spectrum and give off more red/yellow light. The main disadvantage of running a 6500K bulb would probably be the tendency to grow more algae/cyano as plants prefer light in that red/yellow spectrum.

All that being said...I'd probably make the same decision to replace the 6500K bulb with an actinic for better colors; as long as your other bulbs have sufficient PAR, you probably wouldn't have a noticeable difference in growth. Just wanted to state the above because I think there's a lot of confusion between PAR and the correlation with Kelvin temp. Depending on what you read and where...it's just way to easy to come across the same misinformation from multiple sources on the national forums.

 

[ReeferMatt]

Thanks man, I must admit that I miss a bit of the "brightness" of the old bulb config.... it is VERY blue.

 

[jahmic]

Thanks man, I must admit that I miss a bit of the "brightness" of the old bulb config.... it is VERY blue.

You could always see how things go and switch out that actinic later. Maybe try a 10k bulb since that will give you a crisp look like the 6.5K with higher output in the blue spectrum.

 

[ReeferMatt]

So I thought I would continue with the theme. This time the difference doesn't come from bulbs but from changing the exposure to light. I had these zoas, which I liked just fine, but had been told that they might be "pink and golds. A little bit of research and I found posts saying that pink and golds became more pink with higher light, actually I think they said "the brighter light the better they look, IMO"... so I tried it. I broke the frag plug into two pieces, left one low and put one high.
Here are the results:

Low
View attachment 10292

High
View attachment 10293

 

[CRW Reef]

Well who ever said higher light they look better was right IMO. They look awesome in the second picture for sure!!!!! Thanks for sharing you research

 

[Haulin Oates]

Hmmm gonna have to move mine up!!

 

[ReeferMatt]

They grow like weeds so I may have some frags soon