actinic lighting

my light fixture supports 4x 54 w t5's. i currently have 2 daylight 12,000k and 2 actinic blue. in my opinion the daylights way overpower the blue and my tank doesnt appear blue at all. i really want to switch out one of the daylights for another blue...and run 3x 54w actinics and one 54w 12,000k i really like the blue hue look. will this be ok with a reef tank mostly lps corals. my local saltwater store actually runs 75% actinic light in their tanks and they have alot of sps under that light also and it seems to thrive. i just want more opinions even though im pretty sure it will be fine.

 

A high actinic ratio is not great longterm for coral growth. You would be better off switching to a higher K bulb instead of the 12Ks. That would get you the bluer look you are looking for without stunting coral growth too much.

 

it seems half say actinics are for just viewing, and half say it promotes coral photosynthesis. what k rating appears blue? it is a hard call because usually bulbs have to be ordered and i cannot view what the bulb looks like lit up until i have already bought it

 

15K is a blue/white
20K is flat out blue

I understand about trying to figure out how something looks from written descriptions. I am currently having some of the same issues. Your best bet would be to look for pics of tanks, or in person if you can find some, and find out what bulbs they run to find the look that fits you.

 

Have you looked at the fiji purples?

IMO coral grows just fine under acnics only. My coral supplier grows a lot of his softies and some of his acans under primarily acnics. It also promotes more color in your corals. I say try the acnic first. If you decide your corals are not happy under it at least you can try something else and you didn't buy a bulb you won't use in the future.

 

thanks for the input. yes my local coral store has 4 bulb fixtures and 3 of those 4 bulbs are actinics. i will try running 3 actinics and one daylight. he runs his business on those bulbs and depends on his corals survival so im sure actinic light is good for corals. im not looking for record breaking coral growth i just want them to survive and be healthy.

 

One thing to consider about your LFS running tanks like this is that, coral looks much better under more acnictic. If your LFS buys as apposed to growing it's coral to sell, than they may be flooding it with acnics to make it look better and sell better. I'm not saying it's wrong because clearly their customers can see what their bulbs are.

I would try it though. The people who have truly remarkable, head turning tanks are the ones trying new things. People going by the set standards just have tanks that look like everyone's.

 

I had similar problems with aesthetics when I had 3 x 10k and 3 x actinic

I swapped the 4 x 10k our for 2 x Gmann aquablue 14k and 2 x Aquamedic reef white - which are 15 K

I now have a much bluer look without sacrificing PAR ( Dr Fragensteins words so Im happy with that)

Steve

 

Mikejrice you are correct. Stores try to keep their inventory for no longer than a month. If they are not able to sell, they would promote sales and such to get rid of them. Most LFS are more concerned with look rather than growth. FYI, a friend told me that store owners usually place mirrors behind their tanks to make them look bigger. So I wouldn't be surprise if they used atinics to sell more.