mordibv
Active member
This is a good thread . I am curious on the colors of red acro's . I had a Pac Sun early gen model that used bridgelux leds with a few UV leds in the unit . I had no problem keeping a Red Planet Acro red with this unit . Pac Sun did away with UV leds on the newer generation units . Stating the manu are behind the diyer's is not true imho . The above statement indicates otherwise . Why they stopped is beyond me .
LEDs in general put out little if any UV at all . T5's and halides put out quite a bit of UV .
I learned from a t5 user that if you put a cable tie around a t5 bulb such as a blue plus or the special in time it will make the cable tie brittle enough to fall off the bulb . This is from UV exposure .
Chemistry can play a role in coloration . Zeo heads and bio-pellet users have learned that these types of filtration methods will strip the water column of potassium . Red montipora's are known to pale out due to the lack of potassium .
I now use a manu unit that has cree Xp series leds in it . 10 cool white , 4 RB and 4 Blue's . I did add a rose/ red Tru Lumen strip to the fixture . It has 4 leds on the strip mounted to the rear of the unit . I was advised by the manu of my fixture that the color may bring the red's out but would only cause algae issues .
I did aquire a red milli recently but it was not really red in the store when I purchased it .
It has yet to color up .I can rule out potassium ,po4 as an issue as I have no measureable po4 and I add potassium once a week via . Lugols , Brightwell's Potassion and Eco NF metals + water changes TM Bioactif Salt . Since reading this thread I will use the rose /red strip more to see if it makes any improvements .
Any thoughts on how long to run them ? I will let them run 4 hours a day for starter's . I used to only run them for an hour before the blues shut down for the night since I liked the pop it gave the tank.
So in a nutshell I am as stumped about this as everyone else ,
LEDs in general put out little if any UV at all . T5's and halides put out quite a bit of UV .
I learned from a t5 user that if you put a cable tie around a t5 bulb such as a blue plus or the special in time it will make the cable tie brittle enough to fall off the bulb . This is from UV exposure .
Chemistry can play a role in coloration . Zeo heads and bio-pellet users have learned that these types of filtration methods will strip the water column of potassium . Red montipora's are known to pale out due to the lack of potassium .
I now use a manu unit that has cree Xp series leds in it . 10 cool white , 4 RB and 4 Blue's . I did add a rose/ red Tru Lumen strip to the fixture . It has 4 leds on the strip mounted to the rear of the unit . I was advised by the manu of my fixture that the color may bring the red's out but would only cause algae issues .
I did aquire a red milli recently but it was not really red in the store when I purchased it .
It has yet to color up .I can rule out potassium ,po4 as an issue as I have no measureable po4 and I add potassium once a week via . Lugols , Brightwell's Potassion and Eco NF metals + water changes TM Bioactif Salt . Since reading this thread I will use the rose /red strip more to see if it makes any improvements .
Any thoughts on how long to run them ? I will let them run 4 hours a day for starter's . I used to only run them for an hour before the blues shut down for the night since I liked the pop it gave the tank.
So in a nutshell I am as stumped about this as everyone else ,
Last edited:
