250's or 400's

Yep, they are super intense so maybe thats why it looks a little less blue. They are actually brand new bulbs I got last week. When you walk into my bedroom, the room looks alot more blue than the tank. Maybe its the reflection off of the sand. Who knows but I like the color.
 
In my opinion most of the places we get OHHHHHH and AHHHHHH sps frags from run their setups using 400 watt bulbs. The reason they do this (awesome colors!!) that stay bright and keep their intensities. I've been running 20,000K XM's on 400 watt elecronic ballasts for years and I wouldn't switch to 250 watters if someone paid me. Dr. Mac, Tyree, Atlantis aquarium, etc. all use these bulbs on their tanks for the same reason. Unless your Zeovit potions / water quality parameters/ flow rates/ CA and ALK dosing routines are perfect, 250 watters aren't going to compete with colors coming off the 400 watt 20,000K bulbs with so/so tank conditions and parameters. Some of the guys running 250's have immaculate tanks and could probably keep those corals looking nice in the dark! Their water is so clear the light can punch right through. For the rest of us with so/so husbandry the 400 watt 20,000K lighting will let you get away with more and still give the coral enough to thrive. Again this is just my opinion. I also agree with the concept that if you run 250's with VHO actinic supplement you're darn near looking at the same wattage/cost of 400 watters alone anyway.....Enough babble pics speak louder than words.
millepair.jpg
 
One more thing myself and others have noticed is the 400 watt 20,000K XM bulb runs much whiter on a magnetic ballast than most of the electronic ones. If you don't like the blue look so much a magnetic ballast will run it with the colors of the pictures I posted.
 
tank

tank

Here's a couple of crappy shots I took when it was first setup. That was over a year and a half ago. It doesn't really look much like it did then but you get the idea. I will have to post some more recent pics now that I have my new camera going. Good luck everyone with the light debate. I'm off to Florida for the day.
tankshot2.jpg
 
400's all the way, I have a 210 and I run three 400 and 440 of vho, I love my colors even some corals such as a purple digitata in order to be completely purple it has to be up high, now in my friends 180 gallon he has three 250s, we are both running 10k and he is not able to keep a lot of the colors I do. most of his corals are not a bright or brillent in colors, alot of his brown out with colorful tips and even a few corals I have gotten from him have colored up nicely in my tank. Myself I perfer the 10 with vhos, I run one 10 and two coralvue reeflux, amazing colors, the 20's I find to blue, to each his own, but at least with 400w you'll never have a problem. As for the article on comparing the aquarium lighting to a natural reef, please people really have to stop doing that, most of the corals we have in our tanks look nothing like they would in the wild.
 
trueperc,

I think there are some on here that have tanks where their corals get pretty darn close to the natural color of colonies in the wild. Personally I think some of the corals in the wild are unbelievable and I think that some of the colors I see being displayed here on reef central are pretty awesome as well.

I also think that you can get awesome coloration with 250's and a little vho supplementation. I honestly see no need to ever go to 400's. If anything I would go from my current 250, 10k's to 20k's and see if I get any better color but experience tells me that they will be more blue than I want.

The coloration I am getting with my current 250 watt, SE 10k XM's is some of the best I have seen and the light in my opinion seems more natural looking than most. I do supplement with 2, 110 URI Super Actinic R VHO's as well.

All of this is just my opinion regarding my current setup.

-Bill:)
 
J4Life, You are absolutely correct. The XM 10K with VHO Actinic combo is unbeatable. This combo brings out ALL the colors in the corals, unlike higher Kelvin bulbs that only bring out particular colors. When I first placed the XM10k's over my tank I didn't really like the look, it seemed too bright and overpowering. As the weeks went by my eyes adapted to the bulbs. Corals began to change in color and develop a much broader range of colors.

I think it is very important to have a bulb that is all over the spectrum chart and opposed to only one section or color.

I couldn't be happier with the color and growth of my corals. Ill be using this brand of bulbs for a long time. They are tried, tested and get results. :thumbsup:
 
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