Best MH bulb and color temp for growing SPS

[Cac986]

Not to bring up a burned up topic, but I am now starting a 400 g frag system and want some expert advice. I will be using light rails with (4) 400 w MH to light the system. Want fast growth without sacrificing flourescence. Post some pics of your corals under your lighting so we can see. I also attatched some pics of my DT tank. I will be sure to post my SPS frag build once I get it started.

Current DT:
Custum Lee Mar glass aquarium 300 g
Triger systems sump (50g) with exteranl skimmer + vertex phos reactor + carbon reactor...

Lighting : (2) 400 w MH HQI hamilton 14 k + (1) 400 w XM 20K + (3) exoxotic ocean blue panorama pros

 

[trueblackpercula]

For faster growth and higher par ushio 10k what's great but is on the yellow side but works great? For slower growth better color radium is what I have now and it works great? But the best bulb ever made would be an aquaconnect but good luck finding one I gave up.

 

[Duc1098]

Reeflux 12k. Great color and you still get the growth you would out of a 10k. Just a little blue, but not too much like you would out of some 20k's.

 

[jackson6745]

Reeflux 12k is nice. If I was still running 400's I would just stick with the radiums. They have the best color and growth under them is still very fast. Going with a yellow 400w 10k needs lots of supplemental lighting to balance out.

 

[JPMagyar]

I'm pretty sure there is another thread very similar to this one going on right now, but be that as it may you will find very little "hard science" to back up anyone's claim that one lamp is better than another in how fast it will grow acropora, and I personally think good water movement, stable alkalinity, and stable pH around 8.2 have way more effect on growth rate than lighting, BUT having said all that I also have an opinion on the best lamp (of course anyone who reads any of my posts knows I have no shortage of opinions :lmao: )

So I say the 400 watt Radium is the best metal halide bulb for both good all around acropora color and growth, and here are some 2-4 year progression shots showing growth. The largest colony is a fast grower and only took 2 years, and all of this is under 400 watts. I have recently made major changes in my lighting, but these pictures are 2 years or more old.



Caveat: The third picture is actually a lie as it's a frag from after I took out the big colony, but I do not have a picture of the original frag, but I am being very honest when I say the actual original frag was only about 1 inch and a single branch so the effect would be even more dramatic. Point is I'm not sure a 10k would have grown the corals any faster at least not in any meaningful way, and I am fairly certain that to my eye 10k coral coloration would not have looked as nice, but that part is more a "beauty in the eye of the beholder" issue if you ask me.


Joe :beer:


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[this is me]

For those who are saying Radium, what ballast are you using it with?
Probably good to state which ballast along with the bulb used as well.

I'm using Phoenix with Icecap ballast in my current tank. Liked the color and growth but I'm wanting to try the legendary Radium but this will require me to change out all three of my IceCap ballast to M80 on my 72" Spectra fixture.

 

[JPMagyar]

For those who are saying Radium, what ballast are you using it with?
Probably good to state which ballast along with the bulb used as well.

I'm using Phoenix with Icecap ballast in my current tank. Liked the color and growth but I'm wanting to try the legendary Radium but this will require me to change out all three of my IceCap ballast to M80 on my 72" Spectra fixture.

My tank used the old PFO-HQI monster heavy M80 ballast with the Radiums. As a comparison here are progression shots of ReefBums TOTM tank that used Radiums on Lumateks, but again, I'm not sure there is a lot of difference discernible to the average reefer because making a tank grow like this is not so much about choosing the right bulb as it is about the total husbandry of the reef.


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[nanotank]

I was partial to m59 and xm 20k.... Color and good par off magnetic ballast..

 

[rhino509]

id have to agree on the 20k radiums,on magnetic ballast.good growth and great color without having to run supplemental lighting...

(if ya look at some of the ''high end'' retailers many of them run that same setup,400 watt 20k radiums)

20k radiums on magnetic ballast run less blue than several of the 14k bulbs i tried did,and no purple tinting some of them have.

 

[Cac986]

Thanks for all the pics and advice. Joe those pictures of your acro's are amazing. I do agree that lighting is only part of the equation for being successful.. No use in buying lights if they can’t penetrate the water secondary to high dissolved organics...etc. I was thinking of using 6500 k for one section of the frag tank for my smaller frags, once they grow to where I want them to be, I will have a section on the other side of the frag tank with 20 k radiums to bring out the pigmentation. I am curious (actually excited) to see how light rails will effect the growth/health of my SPS frags. I think this will mimic the ocean as most corals do not need intense lighting over them to thrive. The waves must deflect the light to a certain degree, and clouds are usually present on our natural reefs. We will see.

 

[JPMagyar]

Thanks for all the pics and advice. Joe those pictures of your acro's are amazing. I do agree that lighting is only part of the equation for being successful.. No use in buying lights if they can't penetrate the water secondary to high dissolved organics...etc. I was thinking of using 6500 k for one section of the frag tank for my smaller frags, once they grow to where I want them to be, I will have a section on the other side of the frag tank with 20 k radiums to bring out the pigmentation. I am curious (actually excited) to see how light rails will effect the growth/health of my SPS frags. I think this will mimic the ocean as most corals do not need intense lighting over them to thrive. The waves must deflect the light to a certain degree, and clouds are usually present on our natural reefs. We will see.

Again, take this as just one guys opinion and in no way meant to imply absolute fact, but below is a link to a study done a few years ago which would seem to show that 10000k lamps (and by corollary 6500k lamps) do not grow coral faster than 20000k lamps and may in fact cause acropora to grow more slowly. It's only one report, but having started life as an aquarist using Iwasaki 6500k lamps I would personally tend to agree with Dana Riddle's findings. I know there was another study done where they photographed actual frags and showed the results in pictorial fashion, but I can't seem to find it. That study did seem to bear out the same answer though. 20000k metal halide lighting is on average simply the best for stimulating acropora growth


What would be fascinating is for you to take 4 or 5 frags of the same coral and put them on opposite sides of your frag tank for a period of 6 months and post the pictures here. Now that would be cool :dance:



Joe :beer:

The Best Lamp Is . . .

Red Light Generated by the Lamps

While no trend seems apparent with either PUR intensity or the amount of blue light generated by these lamps and Acropora solitaryensis growth rates, the same can not be said when we examine the amount of red light and how it correlates with coral growth. See Figure 5. The more red light a lamp generates correlates fairly well with low growth rates.

 

[ashish]

My tank used the old PFO-HQI monster heavy M80 ballast with the Radiums. As a comparison here are progression shots of ReefBums TOTM tank that used Radiums on Lumateks, but again, I'm not sure there is a lot of difference discernible to the average reefer because making a tank grow like this is not so much about choosing the right bulb as it is about the total husbandry of the reef.


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Thats amazing

 

[Yariel0527]

My favorite radiums 20k

 

[Alex T.]

400 Watt Radium 20k on Galaxy 400 watt ballasts are as close as you're going to get to the now unavailable PFO HQI ballasts that Reefbum was using. Same crisp white light with blue tint, and high par values that can grow SPS anywhere in my 24" deep tank...even 16" above the water in Lumenmax Elite reflectors.

The benefit of the Galaxy ballasts is that you get closer to 10 months/1 year out of the bulbs, where as 400 Watt PFO HQI users report that they need to replace bulbs every 6 months. Ouch!

I notice around 10 months that a little algae starts to rear its' ugly head and corals start to pale a little as the bulbs start shifting spectrum. Now I just know to order bulbs every 9 months and wait for these cues.

People will argue about which bulb/ballast combination is best, but the proof is in the pudding. With all things being equal (great water movement, stable water parameters, good husbandry/maintenance) you can sift through the TOTM award winners that use metal halides and one bulb keeps popping up over and over again more than the others.

R-A-D-I-U-M...there is no substitute!