more blue? or more white? i know the 10k’s and whiter lights are better for growth. and the actinics show off zooanthelate and penetrate deeper. so i guess a mix of both is best. just wondering HOW MUCH of each does everyont seem to do better with? or prefer? (%)
ex. i am running 3-10k 150w MH HQI, 2-10k 96w PC and 2-actinic 96w PC. was thinking about switching out the 10k pc’s for 50/50’s. i like more blue, but don’t want to steal too much white from my inhabitants. thoughts??
I’d go 10k’s with the MH’s and Actinics with the PC. I’d put the Pc’s on a timer to run 11-12 hours and the MH’s for only 7-8 hours.
Of course, you could talk to houndsbayman about his 20k mh’s. He has (i think) reeflux 20k’s which are white and show good color.
pretty sure he is running 14k, which is a little bluer than the 10’s. my old 20k mh were pretty blue.
Just got new 14k pretty nice, touched with atinic tubes.
Color of the light is a personal thing, blue meaning deeper the level the ocean you want to attain. I run 20000k hqi with t5 artinic . i make the tank look like its 30 to 90 feet down. its all in what you are going for.
I’m running 250W MH with 4x 65W Actinic PCs. Run the PCs about 10 hours and the MH for bout 8. Really I think my MH are too much for my 90gal.
I am using Reeflux 20k SE 250w bulbs. These are the new 20k bulbs that just came out. I run them on Coralvue ballasts and they color up white with a hint of blue. I was using 2 96w pc bulbs for suplemental lighting, but just installed 2 new VHO bulbs, blue attinic. I really like this look.
One of the biggest factors in choosing lighting could possibly be the species of corals being kept. Most of us keep complete mixed reefs with animals from many different area of the reef and areas of the world. There are some hobbyist who specifically try to achieve shallow water reef tanks or deep water reef tanks, but those tanks are seen rarely. If you would like to stick mostly to softies or mostly SPS their may be some bulbs that would achieve better growth one way or the other, but if this is a display tank then you don’t want rapidly grown ugly corals so you want a mixture of looks and appearance.
It does mostly come down to personal preference. Really I think getting the right type of lighting(enough T5 bulbs or the right MH bulbs) as well as the right chemistry and flow is more important then spending a lot of time research the color of bulbs to use.
As far as what exactly I use… well I have too many tanks to get into it, but because of my budget in the last year it has mostly been what was affordable at the time. Though I will say most of my tanks are fairly shallow and run off of T5 HO driven by ice cap ballast.