Best lighting to show colours?

[zukharla]

I bought a toxic green Hammer the other day which was insanely bright at the LFS. The brightest I had ever seen. In my tank at home, it's green but nowhere near as intense. My lights seem to be a fair bit whiter than what the LFS had over their Euphyllia tank. Any recommendations to bring out the colour? Is more blue the way to go?

 

[freetareef]

if you are looking for your colors to pop then yes. What is your light set up now?

 

[zukharla]

We have 4 T5 lights 54 watt. Front to back -

Aquamedic actinic blue
Aquamedic ocean white
Hagen Powerglo
Arcadia marine blue

We are thinking we should change the Hagen to actinic blue and the Arcadia to Ocean white aswell as we really like the Aquamedic lights. Would this help?

 

[freetareef]

most reef stores i have been to have a metal halide t-5 combo light. your coral could also be stressed a little from moving. if color is what you are after i would go with 20k mh with some blue t-5s or vhos. how deep is your tank?

 

[zukharla]

The tank is only 18" deep and we dont really want to go the MH route. The tank it was in at the LFS didn't have MH, just T5.

So if it's stressed, it wouldnt be as vibrant? It's not fully out yet so stress makes sense. We're having a fun time with the powerhead because it's too strong for the tank and the hammer was getting too much flow. We havent had corals for a couple of years, just fish only, so I'm relearning all of this

 

[Octoman]

Quality blue LED's really make the fluorescent colors explode.

 

[arentspowell]

Look into some other bulbs to get that pop you are looking for. Take a look at the ATI bulbs. It depends on how blue you want to go, but before I switch to MH i had 3 ATI Blue+ and 1 ATI purple+, and everything look very bright! If you dont want as blue you can switch one of the Blue+ our for an aquablue special (its actually white not blue).

 

[SAZAMA]

led or MH, I like 20k. my colors are intense and look better that most my bros but I also dose Koral Kolor

 

[mscarpena]

It all depends on what you want to do. I like my colors nice, but I also like my tank to look natural. I have LEDS blue and white with the whites dimmed down to about a 14K color temp. I love it. LEDS make the colors pop like crazy. Get your self some blue leds as an add on and you'll be floored.

 

[Sula]

I agree that blue LEDs will bring out the greatest pop in your LPS. If you want to stay with T5s, definitely try the ATI Blue Plus lamps.

 

[zukharla]

We had a chat last night and think LEDs might be the way to go. Everyone raves about them so much so they must be good! We might try the T5 lights recommended first and see what we like but we'd eventually like to get a couple of SPS so will need to upgrade to LEDs anyway in the long run.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

 

[RokleM]

T5's will very easily give a massive color pop. The bulbs you list above however are somewhat out of the recommended norm here. Standard 4 bulb setup most like are 2x ATI Blue+, 1 ATI Aquablue and a purple (Fiji Purple or the new ATI purple). A little less blue, substitute a blue+ for another aquablue (aquablue is a 12-14kish white with hint of blue bulb).

Now, I'm not saying rush out and replace your bulbs, but something to think about next time you're ready to swap them.

 

[zukharla]

Two of them are coming up for replacement so I will certainly look into ATI bulbs. I havent seen them around before at my LFS but they mostly just stock Aquamedic & Arcadia. I'll have a shop around and hope that we can buy ATI's in Australia, which I imagine we can somewhere.

 

[israel.kendall]

T5's will very easily give a massive color pop. The bulbs you list above however are somewhat out of the recommended norm here. Standard 4 bulb setup most like are 2x ATI Blue+, 1 ATI Aquablue and a purple (Fiji Purple or the new ATI purple). A little less blue, substitute a blue+ for another aquablue (aquablue is a 12-14kish white with hint of blue bulb).

Now, I'm not saying rush out and replace your bulbs, but something to think about next time you're ready to swap them.

This.

 

[dfixallman]

I got mine set like this: 1st - ATI Blue Plus,2nd -ATI Blue Plus,3rd - GE 600K Daylight,
4th - Super Acinic VHO , 5th - Acinic White VHO,6th - Super Acinic VHO, 7th - ATI Blue Plus over a 90. I got my info from GrimReefer on here and he seems to know a whole lot about lighting. Look under the lighting forum and look for Grim. My colors really POP !!!

 

[cjcmcheek]

Radium 20k hands down for color

 

[PMUnprotected]

I've recently purchased Aqua Illumination Sol Blue LEDs. Awesome colors! Granted I upgraded from standard fleurescent.. Nonetheless it gives a great look and the programmability to create sunrises/sunsets is well worth the cost. Nothing like seeing your corals wake up with a nice morning stretch!

HTH!