Asking for assistance. I am running a SB reef light over my reef tank. I’m looking to add 2 t5 bulbs to get help from shadowing from the LED lights. Was wondering what best combo would be. The LED has enough blue in it. I was looking online and a lot of people suggest blue+ and coral+. I was thinking 2 coral+ possibly? One on each side of LED.
Bulb combo
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Bpb
2500 Club Member
Honestly...The Blue+ would probably improve growth by a hair over any other bulb choice, but I feel like that might just be negligible. It really depends on what look you prefer. Either way for the sake of spectral blending I would make sure to use the same two bulbs though and not mix it up. Kind of depends on what you hope to achieve visually. Do you want it a little whiter for daytime, a lot whiter for daytime, fill in some missing low wavelength areas with a pair of true actinics, improve growth alone? If it were my tank and I were using a single bulb front and back I'd either use two coral+ or two 6500K bulbs to brighten up the daylight look. But I like a very white tank.
I’m looking to get more growth and possible better coloring. I was watching a video by advanced reef aquariums with 7 different light bulb combinations. I liked the combo of these two. Because of color. But I also want growth so I really don’t know if these bulbs are the best growers as well. I’m assuming it’s the blue plus that I’m liking for the pop because both have blue plus in them. But is coral growth good with blue plus?
Bpb
2500 Club Member
Coral growth will probably be best with ONLY blue+. It’s the perfect bulb for that purpose. But it is lacking in some of the warmer colors that are helpful to develop and bring out red pigments.
Basically if you already have enough PAR but are wanting to improve growth and color a bit, a combo of blue+ and actinic is what I would go with.
If you lack par, and need to increase it, the blue+ alone will be the winner. If you simply want a brighter tank with more natural colors, pick your poison on white bulbs. I like 6500k giesemanns. They’re well balanced and look good to me. If that’s too white the coral+ and/or purple+ bulbs will help bring out the reds a hair without causing the sand to appear more white and make the whole room a lot brighter.
Basically if you already have enough PAR but are wanting to improve growth and color a bit, a combo of blue+ and actinic is what I would go with.
If you lack par, and need to increase it, the blue+ alone will be the winner. If you simply want a brighter tank with more natural colors, pick your poison on white bulbs. I like 6500k giesemanns. They’re well balanced and look good to me. If that’s too white the coral+ and/or purple+ bulbs will help bring out the reds a hair without causing the sand to appear more white and make the whole room a lot brighter.
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