LED’s or T5’s for SPS color pop? POLL

Best type of light for coral pop?

  • T5’s

    Votes: 1 5.6%
  • LED’s

    Votes: 10 55.6%
  • Hybrid of both

    Votes: 7 38.9%

  • Total voters
    18

Miami Reef

Clam Fanatic
View Badges
Joined
Sep 8, 2017
Messages
11,165
Reaction score
20,734
Location
Miami Beach
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Which type of light makes SPS and other florescent LPS corals look best?

I currently have 4 ai hydra 52’s and no matter how much I play with the settings I can never be satisfied. I find that I’m playing with my light settings every week to 2 weeks and I know that’s really bad for the corals.

I ordered Blue Plus ATI hybrid bulbs. 8 bulbs total.

Here are the colors I want my tank to have. But I really only see the corals blend into the rocks. Only the green corals stick out from the rock work.

E7A15EE1-FF88-4C36-BF7C-5376186934B9.png
 

blasterman

Valuable Member
View Badges
Joined
Feb 14, 2019
Messages
1,730
Reaction score
2,018
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Corals only care about PAR. As long as you aren't making drastic changes to PAR levels they won't care.

I tested a 32 Hydra and was unimpressed. It was OK for a softie tank, but the only way to get really deep color that wasn't just actinic blue was to run the light at half power. My modded black box crushed it.

You need to turn off teal, cyan, mint and green LEDs. They don't provide much PAR and crush color....unless you have a thing for brown.. Run cool blues at 10-15%. Cool blues have great PAR but wash out more subtle colors. Max the reds. Crank royal blues to the max. Tweak with cool white.

This should give you good pop but limits the out put of the light.

This is why T5s ironically have more flexibility than high end LED fixtures. You can toss a Fiji Purple in a T5 fixture and get amazing Toon-Town colors. I don't know any T5 owner in the history of reefing that walked into a reef shop and said "hey, give me 48" cyan or teal or 395nm bulb". So, why do we have this crap on $800 LED reef lights?

Honorable mention for classic Halides like 20k Radiums.
 
OP
OP
Miami Reef

Miami Reef

Clam Fanatic
View Badges
Joined
Sep 8, 2017
Messages
11,165
Reaction score
20,734
Location
Miami Beach
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
This was the perfect response. I completely agreed with everything you said but I couldn’t put it into words. Yes! My corals look washed out. I think it was because my bright blues are maxed with the royal. I always liked royal blues, but never had them running high with the other blue lower.

Im super excited.
 
OP
OP
Miami Reef

Miami Reef

Clam Fanatic
View Badges
Joined
Sep 8, 2017
Messages
11,165
Reaction score
20,734
Location
Miami Beach
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
@blasterman what about the UV setting? Are those good to max out too? I don’t see any different with the UV on or off, but it helps me get more par so I’d rather have the royal blues, UV and reds.

what about the violet color? Do I max those as well?
 
OP
OP
Miami Reef

Miami Reef

Clam Fanatic
View Badges
Joined
Sep 8, 2017
Messages
11,165
Reaction score
20,734
Location
Miami Beach
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Never mind! I found this setting from BRS. Awesome! I’m excited especially with the T5’s ATI blue and purple plus mix.
 

Attachments

  • 2428C560-8861-4CE7-B544-C9FF1F09F86A.png
    2428C560-8861-4CE7-B544-C9FF1F09F86A.png
    129 KB · Views: 76
Back
Top