Red Planet & Strawberry Shortcake coloration issues T5

Fishbone

New member
I'm having problems keeping the green base in my red plant and strawberry shortcake. I have them under pretty low par 300ish and I'm convinced it my T5's that are causing the problems. I searched the SPS forum a little and didn't find any great looking R.P. under T5s. Is anybody able to keep the deep green base in their Red Planet/shortcake with T5's, if so what is your bulb combo or secret. I'm about ready to go back to metal halide.
 
Offhand I wouldn't expect a ton of green at 300+ par, at least on top. Were you able to keep the green at that level before you switched to t5s?
 
I've always had them under T5's. I've tried lower and higher par levels no luck. Haven't used halides in about 3 years but I remember them creating darker deeper colors, and all the great looking pieces seem like they are in MH tanks. I wasn't able to find any great example of these pieces under T5's.
 
Hyperion1337 i think yours look great! What bulb combo do you use? Everything in my tank turns red, blue or purple. I can't keep greens to save my life. Ironically when I started keeping SPS 14 years ago everything in the tank was green and I wished for blue, red and purple
 
I have mine 8-9" under an ATI Powermodule, most of it its pink except for the shaded areas that look like this:

 
LuisRa, that piece looks great. Mine is just brick red no green at all. What is your bulb combo. Maybe I have the wrong mix. I'm using 6 bulb PM (B+, Fiji, B+, GE ,B+,BS) . Nice to see these pics
 
Thanks! I also have a 6 bulb combo, right now can't remember every T5 tube names. I have 1 white bulb, 1 pink bulb (Aquapink), 2 actinics, and 2 blue ones. A friend of mine has one under an 8x54 Tek fixture, and is ALL green with pink coralites. Maybe is the light cycle or nutrients?
 
Here is my Red Planet under 4 x T5. The deep green doesn't show much on the front end of the RP. The rear shot of the same RP has much more green on mine. The back end of the frag is only exposed to the Aquablue Special and the Actinic Lamp.

RedPlanetGrowth.jpg


CoralPictures020.jpg


Here are the Bulbs i'm using.

Front
ATI Blue+
Aquatic Life 420/620 Purple
ATI Aquablue Special
Aquatic Life 420/460 Actinic
Back
 
It's definitely not the T5s Bro... Here's my T5 RP
IMG_2585.jpg


Aussie Strawberry shortcake... The growth actually exploded within weeks after taking this picture..
IMG_2597.jpg
 
No green base = too much light, even says so on the ORA website. Not necessarily a bad thing though, I saw this sick looking RP frag under LED earlier today:
20120127_191658.jpg
 
I'm no expert, but the last picture looks to me like a fresh cut- The one to the right looks more RPish to me. Mine was BRIGHT pink and white when first cut. Now, it has the green and pink contrast. Of course, the growth tips are bright white and pink lol. God bless this fast growing beast.
 
RP is one of those discussions like asking if LED/MH/T5 is best... 100 people and 100 answers. I've seen RP colonies under LED looking sick like above (which I took a pic of this evening), and what you mentioned to the right is also an RP that has been under underpowered MH for a while. Myself, I've tried one under a PC and it was the slowest grower I had ever seen but great color! I hear others call it the fastest grower. It's all a conundrum, great coral and plenty of opportunity for different colors, do with it what you will!
 
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