Would it be OK to use All ATI Blue Plus T5 HO Bulbs? Or do you Have to Have White Bulbs too?

[jservedio]

I personally would have either a coral+, AB special, uvl actinic white, or a uvl 75.25 bulb to avoid the washed out blue look that you would get by using all B+ bulbs...

Also, want to mention that while the look of the purple plus bulbs is very appealing to the eye, I've heard(from a very experienced reefer in our local club) that they can negatively affect the colors of sps/lps and am myself going to change out the one purp+ bulb in my arrangement to something else.

Maybe having your entire fixture full of ATI purple bulbs could have some negative affects on color, but not a single bulb on a 4 bulb fixture. The reason they could potentially negatively affect color is the big, isolated spike at ~620nm and large amounts of red/orange light may be potentially negative to corals. However, almost all of the other ATI bulbs have peaks at this range (especially the coral+) anyway, so it isn't just purple bulbs and almost every fixture of any kind on the market has spikes around here as well.

Yes, it is a poor choice to have a large portion of your PAR coming from orange-red wavelengths, but having some orange/red is natural and isn't going to be a problem at all. This is especially true for the OP since Blue+ has almost nothing above 500nm so a single bulb with some orange light is going to be a benefit since it will round out some of the missing spectrum.

The idea that purple bulbs have something that is "bad" for your reef is bunk. Sure, having a poor mix of bulbs that causes high intensities at the wrong spectrum will be bad, but there is nothing special about purple bulbs at all.

 

[Reefer831]

I would do 3 blue plus one coral plus

+1 That is what I would run...all blue+ would look washed out..you can run them no problem but you would me missing a lot of color... Especially red...the coral+ is the bulb that was made to replace the ugly Aqua blue special...it's more on the 20k side Compared to the aqua blue special 12k or 15k side...

 

[dougers31]

Maybe having your entire fixture full of ATI purple bulbs could have some negative affects on color, but not a single bulb on a 4 bulb fixture. The reason they could potentially negatively affect color is the big, isolated spike at ~620nm and large amounts of red/orange light may be potentially negative to corals. However, almost all of the other ATI bulbs have peaks at this range (especially the coral+) anyway, so it isn't just purple bulbs and almost every fixture of any kind on the market has spikes around here as well.

Yes, it is a poor choice to have a large portion of your PAR coming from orange-red wavelengths, but having some orange/red is natural and isn't going to be a problem at all. This is especially true for the OP since Blue+ has almost nothing above 500nm so a single bulb with some orange light is going to be a benefit since it will round out some of the missing spectrum.

The idea that purple bulbs have something that is "bad" for your reef is bunk. Sure, having a poor mix of bulbs that causes high intensities at the wrong spectrum will be bad, but there is nothing special about purple bulbs at all.

Huh.... I can see the difference in my own tank. The display has 2 b+ a purple+ and a coral+, my frag tank(all part of the same setup) has a coral+ and a B+ and has some of the same corals in it as my display. The colors and growth in the frag tank are better. The person who gave me this info has one of the best and longest living reef tanks in MN so I guess I will take his word on this and swap out my purple+ for a uvl 75.25. Time will tell.