MH Lights... 14k v 10k

I’m very new to the hobby, so excuse me in advance where I stumble…

My Current Outer Orbit lighting setup will house both 250W 10k and 14k lights.

Can someone give me an idea of the differences between 10k and 14k lights? (Other than the obvious… wavelength).

How do I choose between the two? Do they better suit different groups of tank inhabitants?

Does one highlight certain color ranges better?

Does it make sense to mix and match the two in a lighting setup?

Thanks!

Greg

fish-welcome

That’s a very hard question to answer. The obvious wavelength, is defiantly different but even when you compare different manufactures 10K and 14K bulbs the color and par are different. The closer to 6500K you get the more growth the corals have. The closer to 20K you get the better illumination of the coral’s zooxanthellae which will provide the neon look. The best I can say is to visit tanks that have different bulbs and see the color difference and see what you prefer. I preferred 14k bulbs by Iwaski

For growth go with the 10K and supplement with actinic

Hey Greg - I apologize I had originally typed up a reply when you first asked me this but my Ipod crapped out and I lost it and didn’t have time to resend - and subsequently forgot about it.

Al hit the nail on the head above. Since you are already running actinic supplements, you would ptobably want to go with 10Ks, 12K at most or you may end up running too blue.

Craig

check out this site.
http://www.coralreefecosystems.com/

look under LIGHTING and then bulb color comparison. and the other tabs for more info.