I currently have a 20000k bulb in my light fixture and have seen some bulbs advertised as 22000k for reef use are these really 22000k and has anyone tried this color temp and what results have you had
The ones I’ve seen advertise 22K were the ones on eBay, there a plusrite bulb. I’ve seen Giesemann bulbs with that but I’ve never used them due to there extream cost. I’ve used the 20k plusrite bulbs but there is no way there 20K, more like a 14K and seem to have alot of color shift shortly after using a short period of time. Figure the 22k may hit close to 20 but will probably have the same shift.
Well, the higher the Kelvin goes, the less red, orange, yellow andgreen light in the spectrum. what is left is mostly 455 nm blue. Kelvin numbers are sort of estimated. it’s a combination and average of the entire spectrum of the bulb. Visual perception is another thing. we see whiter light when theres a bit of ROY G. combined with the BIV. that’s old school memory trick for remembering the order of the spectrum or colors of the rain bow. ROY G. BIV …Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet. A nice guy he is. but reef tanks live mostly off his last name. Because thats all the sea water leaves after filtering out the ROY G. as you go deeper.
You can look up many bulb spectrums here on Sanjay Joshi’s forum. Many years of spectral plots here to use.
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/lighting
you will find that most MH bulbs above 10,000K have a very similar plot. one big peak at about 455NM. and a dribble out through the ROY G. part. which is why pairing a high Kevin MH bulb with true actinic 420 nm VHO works great. It feeds the chlorophyl A and B.