Best way to increse SPS color

[myroom]

I agree

I agree

For SE bulbs Radium is the only way to go, best SE bulb out there period. You could have just stuck with the DE pendants though.

I agree 100 percent this is proven to work for me also. Best colors possible.

 

[myroom]

I used these on the pfo hqi ballast best combo. Pfo is no longer in business though.

 

[Mock]

I agree 100 percent this is proven to work for me also. Best colors possible.

Colors yes... I want colors but I also want growth... Will 20k radiums grow corals or will I have the same tank with good color for years...LOL

 

[kenith]

Not to high jack, but I have a 6 ft long 225 with 60" ATI fixture 8 bulb. I keep the nutrients low 2 trates and 0.01-0.03 phates and the sps are paler than what I'd like. could this be too much light? I run all 8 for a couple of hours and do 6 for 6 hrs, and 2 to end the day.

 

[Mock]

I dont think its too much.. more possible problem would be starvation.... SPS will get really light if its starving for light...

 

[dvanacker]

Not to high jack, but I have a 6 ft long 225 with 60" ATI fixture 8 bulb. I keep the nutrients low 2 trates and 0.01-0.03 phates and the sps are paler than what I'd like. could this be too much light? I run all 8 for a couple of hours and do 6 for 6 hrs, and 2 to end the day.

Doesnt sound like too much light. I bet your tank is young or in need of more food.

I dont think its too much.. more possible problem would be starvation.... SPS will get really light if its starving for light...

SPS will go brown if it is starving for light. Too much light and/or not enough food and SPS will go light.

 

[kenith]

Doesnt sound like too much light. I bet your tank is young or in need of more food.

I've been through a couple of cycles of elevated nitrates and phosphates (15ppm nitrates and .09 phosphates). During that time the corals still didn't have good colors nor did they brown out. I assume the food is enough as I have quite the fish list
- blue tang
- sohal tang
- powder blue
- purple
- 2 lyretails
- 3 clowns
- 2 ocellaris
- 1 bartlett
- 1 mandarin

They get fed twice daily with spectrum pellets via automated feeder and mysis/reef caviar once daily or every other day. Also, the LPS are doing fine with good colors and growth. Advice?

 

[RRaider]

I have 2 - 250w radiums in Lumenbright pendants 12" over the water and a couple of 48" blue plus t5's over my 5x2x2 and I can bleach sps on my sandbed. I went with the Lumatek dimmable ballasts so I could switch to 400's if I wanted but so far I don't see any reason to. I haven't measured par but you can see that the shaded side of some corals are much darker than the parts in direct light.

I chose the Lumatek ballasts because they give me more flexability that the Coralvue ballasts (they will run 250's or 400's, the coralvues are limited to one wattage). It didn't look like most of the bulbs I thought I might want to run were dimmable anyway so the Coralvue dimmable ballast wouldn't be any better than the regular ballast ime.

 

[Kataro]

If you're using 250W radium, I recommend getting bluewave 3 M80 ballast (if you can find them). Gives the best par / coloration on my coral. And if you haven't, get ULNS for SPS and provide amino acid to give a little color. I used to feed my 150G SPS tank about (4 cubes of food) everyday. Just keep everything stable and within parameter and your SPS will color up.

 

[Alex T.]

Well, after reading this thread, I thought I'd chime in. I have a 6 foot 150 gallon 27" deep SPS tank. The rock structure is only in the lower half. I wanted staghorn corals to grow into the space above, therefore I went with 400 watt ballasts and bulbs. After doing a lot of research as to which combo I wanted, I opted for Radium bulbs on Galaxy ballasts with Lumenmax Elite reflectors. Like the Lumenbright reflectors, these are a lot of punch in a smaller area, but they really put the light down deep where I want it. Unless you can find an old PFO 400 watt HQI to run a Radium 400 watt bulb, the Galaxy is hands down tough to beat. They both overdrive the Radium bulb but I get a year out of the Radium whereas PFO HQI users are changing them out at 6 months. Simply stating the Radium is the best bulb is only dependent on the ballast and reflector combination. Throwing a 400 watt Radium on my old Blueline E-ballasts is only one step away from an all actinic look and a waste of electricity.

The Coralvue ballast simply does not deliver the par at depth with the Radium bulb. It will still look good, but if it's crazy SPS that you want near the sandbed I'd go with one of the above options. I'm growing a Hawkins Blue 3 inches from the sandbed with the bulb 12" off the water surface. That's 36" away from the bulb for those that are doing the math.

I've sourced the following link to others before, so I may as well do it again. Nobody tests lights and ballasts better than Sanjay. One point to note as well. I tried XM 20K bulbs. They looked like the Radiums at first, but PAR falls off a cliff with a few months of use, so now I only use Radiums.

Hope this helps.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/6/review

 

[RynosReef]

Colors yes... I want colors but I also want growth... Will 20k radiums grow corals or will I have the same tank with good color for years...LOL

I'm going throught the same thing. I've done a lot of research on it and from what i've gathered the highs and lows involve compromise either way. Iwasaki's around 6500k are great for growth, but suck for color. 20k's are great for color but not so great for growth. If you want a nice balance I'd go between there.

I'm working on a lighting upgrade now myself. I have pendents lights or icecap 250's. Lights have been 20k coralvue.. sucks. I think my colors are good but growth is just okay. So little by little I'm upgrading. Tonight I installed two 250w se 20k Radiums. Mainly due to their reputation. So far so good. But I'm really thinking of upgrading my ballasts to m80 specs, and adding some vho's.

 

[Alex T.]

M80 for 250 watt Radiums is great, but you could really do any of the new electronic ballast HQI settings. You'll definitely get more life out of a 250 watt Radium on proper ballast. If memory serves me it fires at around 330 watts...not really a 250 watt bulb.

 

[Mock]

I am going to go up to the 400w er's and go with the Ushios I think... If all is well and I plan on keeping my 250 ballast I could always go back down with the new pendants. The ballast I have now are M80s but I have DE pendants which sucks. I will have a range to play with until I find that sweet spot.

 

[SwitchedToLinux]

Any thoughts on the hamilton 400 hqi ballasts?

 

[Tater11]

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I am going to go up to the 400w er's and go with the Ushios I think... If all is well and I plan on keeping my 250 ballast I could always go back down with the new pendants. The ballast I have now are M80s but I have DE pendants which sucks. I will have a range to play with until I find that sweet spot.

if you have de pendant with m80 ballasts try pheonix 250watt 14k bulb great color and high par

 

[Mock]

Oif you have de pendant with m80 ballasts try pheonix 250watt 14k bulb great color and high par

I am using Ushios now... I just cant get the par I want. I am measuring 200 about halfway down the tank and I want upwards of 350-400.. I just dont see doing that unless I go up to a 400...

I want 300 on the sand bed and am at about 175. I am going to keep my M80s but we all know we will try 15 different bulb combos before we find that right combination.. LOL

 

[Hookup]

I think the only thing that needs to be added, which seems to be implied is stability in your paramaters. To me the order of operations for color is;
1) nutrient export
2) stability of params
3) trace elements & coral food (amino acids etc)

They are like a pyramid of blocks and the tip is max color. The methods of getting there are up to you...