Bulb options?

[Guygettnby]

I have a 72g bowfront with 2 250w DE halides and 4 54w t5 bulbs. Right now I have 20k bulbs and 4 blue atinic t5 bulbs.

I love the look of a blue tank and like to have everything pop under the lights. Only problem I am seeing right now is my 2 sps pieces have changed color. 1 was a dark green when I got it and now it is a dark bluish and purple.the other was a baby blue color and is now more brownish with white andi light blue tips. but they are both growing good. I would like to get more into sps and do not want to have everything discolor. I would love to keep some of the colors, like pink, reds, yellows and some of the greens. I am willing to sacrifice a little to even things out abit.

With this said, I was planing on getting 14k Phoenix bulbs to replace the 20k I have in the tank now. But what would be the best combo for the t5 bulbs? Or should I say what do you think would be the best combination of bulbs all together to achieve my goal of still having a lot of pop but decent coloration of my sps?

 

[squaretankguy08]

The 14k Phoenix will be perfect, and I would accent that with 2 ati blue plus a figi purple, maybe keep one super actinic

 

[Guygettnby]

i have run pheonix bulbs in the past and loved how they looked. good blue color, but still a hint of white. great par value and great growth while i had them. i was actually planing on replacing my current 20k bulbs with the pheonix once the 20k's got old.

this time i have my T5's running blue atinics that come on 1 hour before my halides and go off 1 hour after my halides turn off. me and my wife both love the looks when just the T5's are on. i have run the ATI blue plus bulbs before, but never the fiji purples. how do they actually affect the look of the tank?

thanks again

 

[WDGLEAVES]

I run the Phoenix with 2 blue plus and 2 Fiji purples, was going to replace one Fiji with an actinic but I liked the color so I left it in.

 

[Guygettnby]

Well, 1 of my t5 bulbs burned out today. So I guess I will be ordering bulbs before I had hoped. So I really need to get this down soon so I can order all my bulbs.

So basically I am going to get 2 250w 14k Phoenix halides with what t5's?? That is where I am stuck at. I really would like to keep sps happy and have good color. Soooo, basically I am so far looking at this setup until I figure the rest out.

Super atinic
Fiji purple
Phoenix. Phoenix.
Blue plus
Super atinic

How do you think that would look and treat my sps?

 

[toothman]

I have a reef tank with 6 metal halide bulbs, currently I have 3 different in, 10k, 20k and 14 k. I have similar corals all around the tank it is really not that different under different lights. 10k's grow coral better in my opinion and are brighter. I would buy a hanna phosphate meter and salifert nitrate test kit and see what the results are. If they are good possibly your bulbs are old and the spectrum has shifted, needing replacement.

 

[WDGLEAVES]

I would change one of the actinics to a blue plus, I don't think you'll like running two. Or like I said I run two blue plus and two fiji purples with 2 14k 250w Phoenix.

 

[WDGLEAVES]

This is my tank with just the T5's on.

 

[Dexters Reef]

This is my tank, two 250w Phoenix 14k, and 4 t5ho. From back to front is Ati blue plus, blue plus, purple plus, blue plus. Tank is 48", 75g. The camera is capturing the color pretty accurately, but in person the tank (ESP the sandbed) is more bright.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhjvhrQUtjc&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Some SPS I have: 3" Purple with Green Polyp bonsai monticulosa (digitate), gold with green polyp milliepora, tri colored birdsnest, pocillipora, 4.5" mint acropora (unknown species, its the second pic attached), green slimer,4" ora blue tipped turquoise stag, green montipora cap, rainbow encrusting montipora, garf purple bonsai

rainbow montipora can be seen here, the last pic is under my leds though

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=20808424&postcount=19

Im very happy with the look of this lighting combination, its a real crisp white with a slight tint of blue in person, it brings out the colors in all different corals.

 

[Guygettnby]

Dexter, I love that birds nest in the first picture! That is one coral I really want to be able to keep and keep the color good like that. Wish I could get a frag of that lol

If you have just the t5's on how does the tank look? As mentioned earlier me and my wife (mostly my wife) both love how the tank looks right now with all 4 t5's being a blue atinic. So I am trying to compromise while getting better color.

 

[Dexters Reef]

Thanks! The birdsnest has been tricky to retain the color. High lighting an it turns pink. Lower lighting it changes to green. Medium light it will develop both colors. I got it from socalaquafarms. I do have 3 frags of it on plugs frowning for a few months now.

With just t5 on, it's mostly a light blue with a hint of pinkish daylight. Hard to describe. The blue plus and purple plus were a little brighter than I was expecting but it grew on me.

 

[Guygettnby]

Thanks! The birdsnest has been tricky to retain the color. High lighting an it turns pink. Lower lighting it changes to green. Medium light it will develop both colors. I got it from socalaquafarms. I do have 3 frags of it on plugs frowning for a few months now.

With just t5 on, it's mostly a light blue with a hint of pinkish daylight. Hard to describe. The blue plus and purple plus were a little brighter than I was expecting but it grew on me.

I like how your tank looks in the photos, but I wonder how it would look with some super atinic bulbs instead of the blue plus bulbs. Have you tried any combo with atinic bulbs?

 

[Dexters Reef]

I have not tried any actinic bulbs, but am interested. Maybe when these need to be replaced I'll try some. I will tell ya, this looks great in person. All colors are brought out with this setup.

I just sometimes feel the blue+ is too much of a light blue and I was picturing a darker blue. I thought it would be closer to an actinic than it really is

 

[Guygettnby]

I have not tried any actinic bulbs, but am interested. Maybe when these need to be replaced I'll try some. I will tell ya, this looks great in person. All colors are brought out with this setup.

I just sometimes feel the blue+ is too much of a light blue and I was picturing a darker blue. I thought it would be closer to an actinic than it really is

Ahh, ok I gotcha. Maybe I will keep my plan with the atinic bulbs as well. I do like a bluer tank.

 

[Dexters Reef]

This is a very light blue, think of like a sky blue. It almost seems like daylight. I read these bulbs have great par so that was my deciding factor.

To give me the darker blue I was looking for I added a ecoxotic stunner led strip. This gives me a great dark blue look, but little par. It's mainly used as accent lighting, and I use the LED strip alone as a moonlight and it makes the coral colors really pop! ESP zoanthids.

I'm thinking a mix of two blue plus and two actinics might be the way to go next time around.

 

[Guygettnby]

So next time around you wouldn't use the purple plus bulb? Only asking cus I was going to have one. 2 atinics, 1 blue plus and 1 purple plus or Fiji purple with the 2 Phoenix halides.

 

[Dexters Reef]

My t5 are wired in pairs. If I turn on set 1, it's two blue+ and looks nice. It's a light blue that is easy on the eyes and looks nice.

Set 2 is a purple+ and a blue+ and this makes the tank bright, almost like daylight with a magenta tint.

When both banks are on with the halides, the purplish pink tint is not noticeable. But when the halides go off, the tank is still pretty bright, so I usually turn off set 2 with the purple plus

I think in the future I would have a blue+ and actinic in each set of t5, to compliment the halides, and to give me a slightly better look when the halides go off. Just a personal preference, I can say everything is colorful and thriving in my current setup and the lighting combo does work well.

 

[Guygettnby]

i ended up buying 2 250w pheonix, 2 blue plus and 2 atinic bulbs. i knew i would like the look of the pheonix bulbs. how ever 1 of my SPS acros that used to be green when i bought it, that turned blueish purple under my 2 250w 20k halides and 4 blue t5's over time now looks bleached out. i noticed this as soon as i changed the bulbs.

both Acros i have in the tank have been growing since i added them in the tank. not fast but i can notice the growth and of course they have encrusted a good amount. 1 never extends its polyps during the day and only partly at night, while the other always has some of its polyps extended and alot at night.

now that i have switched bulbs i guess i will have to wait and see how things go, but i am now kind of worried that they are not as happy as i thought they were. is there anything i should really be doing no that i have switched the bulbs to really try and get them to start growing more and color up?

i feed my tank every day, halides are on for 8 hours and t5's are on for 10 hours. 1 hour before and 1 hour after the halides. i do not have GFO in the tank right now, i have 2 TLF reactors. 1 with straight carbon and the other with seagel (mix of carbon and phosphate remover). have had the tank like this always and not a single problem. all of my levels are good, i dose Bionic pretty much every day. make sure to do a 10% water change atleast every 2 weeks... most of the time it is every week. i change out my filter floss atleast every week. Skimmer is doing a killer job and i have a pretty good amount of flow in the tank right now ( 2 K1400's on a smart wave + mag 9.5 return dual outlet).

my stock list includes right now, 2 b/w clowns, 1 yellow tang, 1 melanarus wrasse, 1 flame hawk, 1 bangai, 1 potters angel, 1 mandarin, 1 bicolor anthias and of course my CUC. everything is 100% healthy and nothing bothers the corals from what i have seen besides the hawk every once in a while touching them. i have kept a good eye on the angel since day 1 and he never seems to bother anything from what i have seen.

every coral in my tank besides the SPS are growing very well and at a good pace. i have always been a zoanthid, soties and LPS in the past. never had luck with SPS until recently when i got back into the hobby with a new setup. so any help would be great. i am looking at buying some more SPS here soon.