Switching lighting to more blue?

[ReefsandGeeks]

I recently took some time to look around at my LFS's tanks, and notice that all of the reef tanks I see look more dim, and more blue than my tank at home. I kind of like the more blue look, but don't want to do what is healthiest for my corals. What is the effect on coral from blue light? from white light? (LEDs)

I currently have my LED's blue channels at 100%, and whites around 60%. Would there be any ill effects from slowly lowering the white channels? Would I possibly need to add some additional blue lighting in order to compensate for the reduced overall lighting? I'm not sure if corals really care all that much about the full spectrum being exactly balanced, or if supplementing more blue instead of the white light would be useful for the coral or not.

 

[outssider]

I currently have my LED's blue channels at 100%, and whites around 60%. Would there be any ill effects from slowly lowering the white channels? Would I possibly need to add some additional blue lighting in order to compensate for the reduced overall lighting?

You can lower the white light as much as you want.....
you may have to add additional blue light...depends on what you got now

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

Thanks, I've always wondered about those tanks you see that look like they run nothing but actinic lighting. I guess I used to assume they just used non-photosynthetic coral or low light corals because they look so much dimmer than tanks with alot more white. I guess watt per watt, blue light will look alot more dim than whites.

I lowered my white channels from 60% to 50% yesterday, and will wait a while to see if there are any changes in the coral. Then I may lower it 1%/day a bit further untill everything looks good and watch for any coral response.

As far as coral healt/photosynthisis, is blue light significantly more effective than white light? Is white light there just for my preference and could run an almost all blue tank if I wanted?

 

[murphreef]

Had this same conversation with a local store who specializes in high end corals.

Turn your whites way down.... run your blues longer.

Here is my light schedule on my Radion XR15G4 Pro hanging 12" above my 25G Lagoon Nano

11 hours total run time. 85% max intensity. Blues and UV @ 100%, Whites @ 8%, Green and Red @ 5%. I run maximum intensity for only 4 hours the rest of the time I ramp up to and back down from over the 11 hours.

Corals seem to love it visually... Sure your growth might not explode but the colors are worth it IMO.

 

[Reefman802]

The colors look a lot better under the blue lights

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

The colors sure do look better under blue light. So far I've dropped my white lights down from 60% to 40%. I'm already liking the color alot more. no issues with the coral that I can see.

I am a bit worried that my lights may not be strong enough for healthy coral with the white LEDs turned down as low as I'd like. I've seen various things on the matter. Anything from "Blues are the only things that coral use, whites are just for looks", To "Coral need a full spectrum of light to be healthy".

Is just blue LEDs okay for coral growth if powerful enough? Ultimatly, I'd like to get the whites down pretty low, maybe 10%.

Also related...Will lowering the white lights stunt algea growth? That would be another great benefit of running heavy blue light if the corals thrive and algea dies off.

 

[houstonreefer]

You may try to increase Red a little bit more for coral coloration.

 

[Uncle99]

You may try to increase Red a little bit more for coral coloration.

Algae loves the red spectrum