advantage to true actinic bulb?

[jeremy K]

I recently bought some frags from a guy with an amazing tank. He runs ATI T5 fixtures (as I do), but runs mostly true actinic bulbs with a couple of purples for daylight. The colors of his SPS were amazing, much better than mine.

I had never run true actinics because I'd heard that blues are better for PAR.
Do people here find that adding a true actinic bulb makes a significant difference in the coloration of their coral?

 

[cleverbs]

Its said to be nice to have a bit of it because you get the UV from a 420nm Actinic most of us run 460s

 

[Tweaked]

Pure Pop! I love the true actinic bulbs personally.

 

[toothman]

my tank all actinic t5 and 20k halide, great colors not as crazy as led.

 

[BrentH]

I've heard they do have some benefits as far as uv but low par and some people run one or so on an all t5 fixture for making the corals pop more I was thinking of actually ditching mine and putting another blue plus instead

 

[Bpb]

I think people are quick to discredit the fact that the vast majority of an actinic bulbs power lies in the most photosynthetically active portion of the spectrum. May read low on a par meter from a lack of red and yellow, but they provide a ton of PUR. they're just visually dim

 

[CommsTech]

I recently added a true actinic bulb which replaced one of my blues and my alk demand went up 10% in 3 days. I also notice the corals pop a little more now.

 

[jeremy K]

Yeah, I wonder about this. True, the bulb has lower PAR, but high PUR. And the other ATI bulbs (blue plus, coral plus, aquablue special, purple plus) have fairly low output in the 400-430nm region.

For those who simply use these bulbs to supplement MH bulbs, the question doesn't really apply, since the MH bulb likely supplies most of the spectrum on its own. For those cases, the actinics just provide more visual "pop". But for those using strictly T5 (or, I guess, T5-LED combos), the question is more important.

 

[JB NY]

I've never found T5 actinic bulbs to be of any real advantage. I have used them in the past with MH lighting and found them too dim to really make much of an impact. VHO URI actinic bulbs were awesome and added so much pop and color to the tank, but the T5 version never has been able to give that same pop.

 

[Piper27]

I only use them when I run 10k halides. And I also use LEDs with that combo. I use a large variety of bulbs in my t5 fixtures but don't really use actintics in my sps tanks fixture. I have never noticed a difference in growth or color from one bulb, and more than one doesn't please my eye. Everyone's eyes see different though

Commstech, did you replace all your bulbs at that time and just add the new actintic with them? Or change any other aspects of your system? Tell us about your light setup before you switched the bulb or bulbs.

 

[Chris Lakies]

I recently added two ATI actinics to my 8 bulb sunpower and i really like some of the extra color POP they give. Gonna let them stay in my fixture for a month or so to see what happens. The below pics are with all bulbs on.

 

[jeremy K]

@Chris Lakies - those are some very nice corals!

Ok, to re-direct this a bit, did anyone have their corals change coloration after they added/removed a true actinic bulb from their set-up?

For example, a Red Planet coral turning more red or green when a blue was swapped for an actinic?

 

[tdb320reef]

Chris great looking corals!

Here is my Story:

I added 4 True actinics to my 8 bulb and defiantly noticed a difference. My par dropped to about 350 across the frag tank where the frags are situations. What I have noticed are colors like the yellow in PC Superman, Green in Cali Tort become more pronounced. The other 4 I added Aqua Blue Specials and getting fast growth and Reds, Blues, and purples look great.

I really like the Aqua Special and True Tactics for a lower profile tank. In my Big tank I run 8 ATI Blue Plus mainly for the par where I get an average 200 at the bottom of my tank. I just ordered Aqua Connect 14K's so if those prove to be a nice White that I am hoping for, I will swap out the blues for Aqua Special and Actinics.

I forgot to note on the Frag system I run Two Panels with LED Blue only and on the Big tank I have about 400 watts of Blue which is why I am looking for the whiter look.

 

[Moser]

Actinic+ tubes are awesome. I run two in each of my Hybrids.
If you have a SPS tank, just run two of those with nothing else, to see the pop you get from them. Once you see it, you'll know what they add. Once you add the other tubes in, they drown out the Actinic, but you still can appreciate the pop they add overall….

Mo

 

[trueblackpercula]

My favorite actinic lights I have ever used were called blue moon now that was an actinic bulb.

 

[BrentH]

Is there anything the corals like from the actnics besides visual effect? What's pur? Sorry I a newly switched over t5 guy and loving it ...

 

[Chris Lakies]

PUR stands for Photosynthetically Useable Radiation. It is also known as "useful light energy" as well as photosynthetic wavelengths and photosynthetic action spectrum

PUR differs from PAR because the basic definition of PAR is ANY light in a specific frequency range of 400 to 700 nanometers that is needed by plants & symbiotic zooanthellic algae.
PUR is the usable portion of PAR, and different photosynthetic species will have a different PUR range to which they respond.

 

[JB NY]

Actinic+ tubes are awesome. I run two in each of my Hybrids.
If you have a SPS tank, just run two of those with nothing else, to see the pop you get from them. Once you see it, you'll know what they add. Once you add the other tubes in, they drown out the Actinic, but you still can appreciate the pop they add overall"¦.

Mo

Actinic+ (now called Actinic Blue) are the Giesemann equivalent of the ATI Blue + you need the Pure Actinic bulb.

 

[Moser]

Actinic+ (now called Actinic Blue) are the Giesemann equivalent of the ATI Blue + you need the Pure Actinic bulb.

"Actinic" is the ATI Actinic tube. That is the one I use.

Mo

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I think people are quick to discredit the fact that the vast majority of an actinic bulbs power lies in the most photosynthetically active portion of the spectrum. May read low on a par meter from a lack of red and yellow, but they provide a ton of PUR. they're just visually dim

You will be very surprised to read what ATI (Oliver P in this case) thinks about actinic tubes:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23060872#post23060872

For maximum PAR & PUR, B+ and C+ combination is hard to beat. If one has a 8-tube combination or more, then adding an actinic tube may add an extra "spice" to host fluorescent pigments. However, if an actinic tube replaces B+, then growth will suffer.