ecoxotic stunner on frag tank question

I have recently set up a 40 gallon breeder frag tank with a single 150w 12k Viper MH. Eventually will add another. I am using eggcrate pretty high up.

Tonight I took a few coral out of my display and put them in the frag tank. The colors were very muted compared to my t5's. Would an Ecoxotic Stunner royal blue make a dramatic color difference? I know these are not that strong, but I am not looking for more light, just color.

 

i don't know about the stunner never had one. what i would do instead is when i changed bulbs i would get 20k that should give ya the color without the extra expence. i'm trying to figure out ways to cut my power bill it's killing me. James

 

I would say go to the 20k or at least 14k.
Now the higher the K the better the color is, but the slower the growth rate. If you want the corals to grow faster, place under 10k. The color will be more dull but once you get a good growth, then you can change it to the 14 to 20k and color them back up. That is what I am going to do with our frag tanks once we get our big tank back up

 

Makes sense. But the Stunner shouldn't affect growth rate, which is most important for me to grow out these frags. Maybe change to the 10k for growth with the Actinic for color? Or just sell the Viper, (Yes, I am also concerned with electricity costs) and get a couple of Par30's?

 

Yeah, usually with a frag tank, you want growth, so, bluer bulbs tend to be less desirable, as they have lower par. Personally, I would use like a 6500K and just live with the ugly yellow, as it's a frag tank, not a display tank. As you said, a stunner won't effect growth, but also probably won't make much difference in perceived color over the very white MH. unfortunately, probably nothing will make a huge difference really, you could probably get a bluer tint if you used T-5s or VHOs, but I doubt you'll even see that with half watt leds (i.e. a stunner).

 

I agree with this completely.

If you have the money get the PAR 30 in all white for growth, then put the frags under 20000K light to color them up before selling/trading them.

 

So I assume the color is always there, just not visible in 10k or less. So when my frags got to the point where I am ready to sell them, I could just switch out bulbs on the Viper to 14k or 20k, or switch fixtures from PAR 30 all whites to something else with high k and the color would be there instantly?

 

You can't go wrong with a few stunners to help color up