How to get what's missing from RB Photon v2+-opinions wanted

[ThemytB]

I'm currently running a photon v2+ over my mixed reef along with a single blue/uv hybrid RB lumenbar, I am overall very very happy with the light. My tank has been growing anything I put into it as long as I pick a good spot (softy/lps/sps even acros) - However, it's like some of the spectrum is missing (likely the exact wrong explanation as I am in no way a lighting expert) certain colors are very muted or just dont seem to show up when viewing the corals. Most notably blues, purples, and pinks. These colors do seem to be actually be in the coral, they just dont show under my lights-I on occasion trade out some frags and always seem to be astounded by how much better some of these corals look (as far as those 3 colors) instantly when put under different lights- even when they are still angry about being transported. I have noticed this across multiple different brands of lights(led)

As a constant tinkerer I will, of course be chasing these "missing colors", despite how wonderful everything is currently going with my tank. So, now I will ask for help from all you people who have ridiculous amounts of knowledge in the area of lighting ,spectrums, and florescent proteins etc. which I have found myself unable to properly understand even after attempting research.

Does anyone have some familiarity with this issue?

could anyone tell me exactly what I seem to be missing here?

Hopefully this issue can be resolved with led bars of some sort, that would be my preferred method. I'm wondering if some reefbrite actinic bars might do the trick? I have had a very hard time figuring out exactly what actinic means. Perhaps I need more or different u/v leds into the mix? I see the RB uv high octane bars have a different set of leds than the blue/uv hybrids and have been told that the photons lack "true uv" leds.

Thank you for any help or explanations you can provide.

my photon settings at peak(4 hrs) are
ch1 13
ch2 13
ch3 90
ch4 30
ch5 75
ch6 85

 

[Bpb]

That’s a very blue looking setting you’ve got. I’d wager you’d get better blue and purple pigment development by running a little higher intensity of your white red and green. A lot of times blue won’t stand out as much unless you remove the blue appearance of the rocks and sand. A perfectly colored Oregon blue tort will get completely lost visually under heavy blues, because the overall ambient appearance will match the color of the coral.

I run the bulk of my photoperiod all channels equal. I don’t do the ab+ thing. That program is designed to provide adequate growth, but highlight fluorescence as much as possible in a “full spectrum” program. It’s still very blue.

All channels run equal provides a pretty wide blanket full spectrum. Definitely don’t sleep on it. Just use a par meter to dial in your desired intensity. The spectrum is there

 

[Eagle_Steve]

@LRT you run more a full spectrum on your photon don’t you? I know you can see all of the colors on your shrooms. Maybe you could help the op out in settings.

 

[jgirardnrg]

Bump channels 1,2 &4 up another 10% each.

Also, if you swap out that Lumenbar for the UV one you'd get more pop. The UV bar runs a different spectrum (390-410) than the UV channel on the lights (420).

 

[LRT]

One thing I've seen with seneye and brs also mentions it in the investigates video is although it gets closer to true actinic than alot of other lights they tested it doesn't get close enough far as my seneye is concerned. I added a hybrid t5 with actinic bulbs.
Before that I was running close to brs reccomended schedule but raised my violet channel and whites. Seemed to bring out the colors and made my corals pop alot more.
If your looking for closer to full spectrum agreed you will have to raise your greens and reds with whites but I'm not sure thats gonna get you what your looking for.
Id try raising the violets and whites and see how you like that. I noticed my corals perk up almost instantly with elevated violet channel the whites just make it pop. Watch out with red channel its super powerful so is royal blue.

You may want to try actinic bar

 

[jgirardnrg]

Agree with @LRT. I spoke to Logan about this when I inquired about the T5 hybrid kit. He mentioned the UV bar and the spectrum to me.

 

[minus9]

If you're not using warm whites, then you'll never get true blue tu show up. The bluer you go, the less blue will come out. Warm whites, violets, etc will do the trick. Also, knowing your potassium levels will help with blues. I increased my color % of my kessil's by 5% during peak hours and the Blues really started to come out more. Check out @therman I believe he runs all channels at 100%, same with Adam @Battlecorals

 

[LRT]

I'll be honest t5 hybrid has been way to much for me and my shroom garden. They put out serious light. Way more than I need. Logan was also correct with me in my case an actinic bar would most likely have been perfect.
Sounds like OP has the means to handle t5 hybrid on mixed reef though.

 

[ThemytB]

That’s a very blue looking setting you’ve got. I’d wager you’d get better blue and purple pigment development by running a little higher intensity of your white red and green. A lot of times blue won’t stand out as much unless you remove the blue appearance of the rocks and sand. A perfectly colored Oregon blue tort will get completely lost visually under heavy blues, because the overall ambient appearance will match the color of the coral.

I run the bulk of my photoperiod all channels equal. I don’t do the ab+ thing. That program is designed to provide adequate growth, but highlight fluorescence as much as possible in a “full spectrum” program. It’s still very blue.

All channels run equal provides a pretty wide blanket full spectrum. Definitely don’t sleep on it. Just use a par meter to dial in your desired intensity. The spectrum is there

Bump channels 1,2 &4 up another 10% each.

Also, if you swap out that Lumenbar for the UV one you'd get more pop. The UV bar runs a different spectrum (390-410) than the UV channel on the lights (420).

Thank you
I hear you both, I will try upping the reds/greens/whites- these low settings are kind of left over from when I first switched to the Photon and had a massive outbreak of hair algae and then dinos when all my phosphate was consumed-not the lights fault, I had seriously sub par lights before hand so the switch was basically starting the tank over, a whole new round of uglies, but those dinos were hard to kill off and have left me a bit scared of the whites/reds/greens, ha ha. especially on the blues this may be all im seeing, just hard to find the blue in the blue

I have tried pushing those settings higher on a very short term basis with no visible change, I dont think I have a pigment development issue as it is honestly take coral out of my tank put in local shops tank and wait 5 minutes for the coral to open up a little bit and there is a beautiful pink or purple that was simply not visible under my set up, for instance there is a good monti colony in my tank that I frag on occasion- in my tank it is sort of dull red/orange, like a dull FF monti minus the green, I frag it and see it under any of the lights i've traded to and the skin under the polyps is a crazy bright pink, like HOLY SCHNIKES! bright , the whole thing just glows pink and this is 5 minutes into acclimation to a new tank, likewise a purple/green splatter frogspawn I have is green and kinda grey with a hint of blue/purple in my tank, put it in some one elses tank and it instantly has the beautiful purple splatter.
Its actually quite frustrating to have it look so much better instantly, If it looked like that in my tank I'd keep way more than 2 or 3 heads because its just beautiful.

do you think this might be more the lower wavelength uv im missing?
does anyone know what exactly "actinic" equates to ?, all these other tanks seem to be rather blue as well, but it looks different all similar to what the kessils look like to me when the whites are down, its a deeper blue that I have been unable to replicate with the settings.

I dont know if you can sense the jealousy here lol- I had saved up for 2 ap9x's(1 saved/1 a bonus from work) and on the day i was going to order my wallet got stolen from my desk with all my saved cash so i ended up getting the photon and a bar.

I'm really hoping not to sound like I'm arguing here, I surely dont mean to. I do appreciate the help.

 

[jgirardnrg]

Actinic relates to 420-460nm... I don't think that's what you're looking for. It SOUNDS like you're looking for more pop/fluorescence. If that's the case, you want the UV pop. if you're looking for more natural colors, bump the the 3 channels up as directed. Do you have the wifi kit for your Photon? If not, it's a good investment because you can do manual over ride and bump the sliders up and down to get the look you want.

 

[Bpb]

Filling out more spectrum is never a bad thing in my eyes. I’d not expect too grand of changes adding a ton of true uv, but it certainly can’t hurt (well it COULD, but you know what I mean).

Build Thread - BPB's Humble SPS Dominant 90 Gallon

Funny story. Took down the metal halides and put leds up. Reduced wattage by half. Heater never runs because the pumps alone keep the tank at 79 degrees. Installed a new AC unit. Went from 8 seer to 16 seer. Ac runs less. Our KWH total and average went way down...but...

www.reef2reef.com

My old build thread. Check out post 229 and on. Lots of pictures.

My working program was
1: 17%
2: 17%
3: 80%
4: 50%
5: 80%
6: 80%

But for all PHOTOS you see I set my “sunny” program to
1: 100%
2: 100%
3: 80%
4: 100%
5: 80%
6: 80%

So if I wanted to take pictures I just switched to that, shot images, then switched back to my operating profile.

The working program as it was worked well for growth and color. I just was unhappy with how blue it was. Very 20,000k and that’s not my thing. I much preferred my photo setting but the par was just way way too high

I’m on a new tank now and I run 8 hours with everything set to 50% with a heavy blue dawn dusk period for a couple hours before and after. Much preferred appearance and it’s been proven to work well with sps.

 

[ThemytB]

Filling out more spectrum is never a bad thing in my eyes. I’d not expect too grand of changes adding a ton of true uv, but it certainly can’t hurt (well it COULD, but you know what I mean).

Build Thread - BPB's Humble SPS Dominant 90 Gallon

Funny story. Took down the metal halides and put leds up. Reduced wattage by half. Heater never runs because the pumps alone keep the tank at 79 degrees. Installed a new AC unit. Went from 8 seer to 16 seer. Ac runs less. Our KWH total and average went way down...but...

www.reef2reef.com

My old build thread. Check out post 229 and on. Lots of pictures.

My working program was
1: 17%
2: 17%
3: 80%
4: 50%
5: 80%
6: 80%

But for all PHOTOS you see I set my “sunny” program to
1: 100%
2: 100%
3: 80%
4: 100%
5: 80%
6: 80%

So if I wanted to take pictures I just switched to that, shot images, then switched back to my operating profile.

The working program as it was worked well for growth and color. I just was unhappy with how blue it was. Very 20,000k and that’s not my thing. I much preferred my photo setting but the par was just way way too high

I’m on a new tank now and I run 8 hours with everything set to 50% with a heavy blue dawn dusk period for a couple hours before and after. Much preferred appearance and it’s been proven to work well with sps.

Man, those pictures. holy mother of god. I suspect I will never have acros that look that beautiful, bit I'll be trying. Thank you very much for the input. Looks like its me thats missing something and not reefbreeders lol.

 

[ThemytB]

Thanks everyone for all the help, looks like I'll be slowly upping whites/reds/greens and maybe dialing back the blues a little bit, along with checking potassium. If I cant get it better with settings on what I already have, maybe I'll swap in a uv bar as well.

 

[WVNed]

Try turning down channel 3 quite a bit. It seems to make everything grey.