Best coraline light spectrum

Is it better just to my white 5500K LED or use both white & blue at 12K for optimum coraline and coral growth?
I am thinking about using only 5.5K when I have fish and then once I add corals to use 12K.

 

Hi, Mark-

You'll get better results with the higher Kelvin light. While coralline will grow under a wide range of lighting conditions (the big delimiter being water parameters), lower spectrums tend to be more conducive to the growth of nuisance microalgaes. Also, coralline is fairly light-sensitive- if it starts growing and then you change your lighting, you'll get a lot of bleaching and die-off.

 

Keep your phosphates low that is the delimiter that Mr. Bill is referring to. Lower intensity lighting will allow greater coralline growth.

 

I have also found that coraline will grow faster under lower K such as 5500K CFL bulb.
But on the other hand, I have had a much prettier range (purple, pink, purple with spots, orange, red, green, and even deep purple plating type) of coraline under higher K bulbs.

+1 on parameters!

 

I use 5500k bulbs in my 29g tank and ati blue plus & specials in my 75g, I have no problems having plenty of coralline to scrape off the glass in either one.

 

I would have to say that your water parameters would be more of an important factor in coralline growth. We have coralline growing in tanks with everything from 6700k bulbs up to 20k mh's