advantage to true actinic bulb?

[m3lacoste]

I run a Cebu Sun with (2) 250w MH Radiums with Giesemann (1) Super Actinic, (1) Super Purple, (2) Actinic Blue. Anyone else run the new Giesemann T5 bulbs? I'm happy with the color and growth but unsure if there's a better recommended T5 combo to complement the radiums.

 

[swk]

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.

You beat me to it! I love that post from Oliver.

 

[likefish]

great link..... thanks!

 

[Tweaked]

I run a Cebu Sun with (2) 250w MH Radiums with Giesemann (1) Super Actinic, (1) Super Purple, (2) Actinic Blue. Anyone else run the new Giesemann T5 bulbs? I'm happy with the color and growth but unsure if there's a better recommended T5 combo to complement the radiums.

These are the same bulbs I switched too from ATI in my Cebu Sun. great bulbs

 

[jeremy K]

Hmm, I liked Oliver from ATI's comment, but he is speaking mostly about growth. I am talking more about coloration. Not so much about "pop" per se, but rather coloration of the coral. My friend who runs mostly actinics with purple plus as his daylight bulb - he has coral coloration similar to people who run Radium MH bulbs. Whereas most people I know who run T5 setups have different, more uniform coloration of their corals (more pastel). Wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

 

[BrentH]

i recently changed my lighting from 400 watt radiums to all t5 and have noticed a more pastel color to my corals but also seem like better color in some ways hard to explain my growth has improved as well which is surprising to me/ my corals did best that were under the hilides were now everywere does good...i plan on keeping my actnics now knowing

 

[BrentH]

thank you

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.

 

[swk]

The new giesemann actinic blue bulb is a nice mid point. A little darker blue than b+ but still good numbers in the par dept

 

[ReefCowboy]

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?

I run hydra 26's with two Blue+t5 bulbs and saw tremendous improvement in color, wondering if I should give the true actinic bulbs a try and add another retrofit kit with two ATI true actinics....hummm

 

[jeremy K]

Reef Cowboy

You saw improvement in color after you added the blue T5s to the hydra, or the hydra to the blue bulbs? I have found that my corals like T5s better than LEDs - perhaps due to better spectrum coverage, perhaps due to something else - but when I re-introduced T5s to my setup (that had previously been LEDs) coloration improved almost immediately.

 

[ReefCowboy]

Reef Cowboy

You saw improvement in color after you added the blue T5s to the hydra, or the hydra to the blue bulbs? I have found that my corals like T5s better than LEDs - perhaps due to better spectrum coverage, perhaps due to something else - but when I re-introduced T5s to my setup (that had previously been LEDs) coloration improved almost immediately.

I have a 57 rimless and run 3x hydra 26's and although many would consider it overkill, I find the coverage with three units similar to let's say 4x T5 bulbs.


I run my LEDs with blues at 87% with whites at only 8% and thought I had great colors until I added the two blue + bulbs and noticed the sps and specially the chalices improved color tremendously. I feel my LEDs are just for my viewer pleasure, but the main health of the tank comes from the benefits from the two blue + bulbs.

I've been researching and noticed many experienced reefers with great sps tanks run true actinic bulbs in their systems and feel I should give it a try.... If I hadn't tried the two bulbs I have now, would never know how much it was a good choice, so maybe adding the actinics I can get lucky again....

Sorry didn't mean to make this an ledxT5 thread, but I am a T5 believer.