Actinic lighting question

Can some one tell me if there are any benefits in color with 420nm actinic vs 460nm actinics? My Nova extreme light comes with 4x460nm actinics and 4x10,000K bulbs. I think I'm going to add a couple of super actinic blue bulbs to replace 2 of the 460 bulbs and add a 6000 or 6500K bulb plus a 12,000K actinic white bulb for 2 of the 10,000K bulbs. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I'm wanting to bring out reds and blues as well as more flourescence.

 

420nm is TRUE actinic. It will really make some corals pop, especially if you run just that light at night. It has the effect of a blacklight on some corals.

 

Also with the 6500K which is basically the color of the sun, your corals will grow quicker too, thats a coral farmer secret, lol. You will lose some color intensity though. Which is why a lot of corals in the sea are browns/reds/greens but when kept in aquariums, different shades of colors come out and even morph to super colored.

 

Thanks for the info. One of the benefits of having 8 bulbs is that I can tailor the lighting by mixing bulb types. I guess it will be trial and error.

 

Thats what I like about T5 lighting. The bulbs are not that expensive unlike other lighting. So if the color doesnt turn like you hoped, you are not out a lot of money, and you will have spare bulbs if one burns out, haha.

 

oh yeah, on one of my stock tanks, I run 2x175w MH 20,000K and 2x95w VHO white actinics and I love the colors. I use this combo for "coloring up" corals.

 

I wish they made a 20,000K T-5 bulb.

 

you can get the same look from the 460nm T5 bulbs