Another quick bulb question...

[amnesiac]

Hello everybody. I have a small frag tank going and made the switch to T5 from LED. I absolutely am blown away by what a difference it has made. Growth is awesome and a few sad looking montis colored back up to deep hues and have started growing again. Just WOW. I felt like a sap having spent so much for an LED unit when a cheapO 4 lamp T5 has done just fine.....better than fine. Anyway, my question is in bulb selection. I have been running 2 blue+ and 2 aquablue specials. Can't argue with the results but the color is super white/yellow for my tastes. I'd like to either take out the AB specials and go with all blue+ or maybe keep one AB special and go

blue+
purple+ or actinic
AB special
blue+

So will my coral health and/or color suffer if I change the bulbs up but keep the same par??? I would very much like for my frag tank to have a bluer look but am not willing to sacrifice growth and color to do that. Any help would be appreciate. Thanks

 

[ReefEco]

Hey Amnesiac - also look at the Coral+, which is a little bluer than the AB special, but also has some of the spectrum that the Purple+ has. What you might do is switch out bulbs incrementally - start with switching out a AB special with one Coral+, and see how you like it. Whatever changes you make, make them slowly - i.e. over several weeks one bulb at a time, to ensure your corals have time to adjust. Can't predict how the corals will react, but I doubt they will "suffer". Check out Tidal Gardens youtube channel, as they have a cool video showing color of various T5 bulb combinations.

Hope that helps!

Best, Peter