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Light intensity drops and spectrum shifts (I do not know which way!)
The T5 Q&a Thread - split
- Thread starter eagle9252
- Start date
Light intensity drops and spectrum shifts (I do not know which way!)
RTPARTY: can you please post a pic of your 2 Coral Plus with 4 Blue Plus combination to see if i can view the difference between what i have now (4 BP, 1 PP and 1 CP)??
Thanks in advance...
Thanks in advance...
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
You're not gonna see a difference between your tank and my picture. Pictures are useless when trying to figure what a certain combo looks like.
There are so many variables that influence how a picture looks. Camera settings, skill level, monitor calibration, what I see vs what you see, etc etc...
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
Martians will attack earth.....
Your bulbs shift spectrum and lose output over time. Your blue bulbs become less blue and nuisance algae will become a problem. Coral colors will also start to fade.
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
Blue
Blue
Coral
Coral
Blue
Blue
My lights are almost 13" above my tank so the light blends very well and I don't get any banding going on.
Perfect. Thanks. I will be placing an order soon so just wanted to be sure. It's equal to mine just with the Purple in the middle.
Thanks once again.
Thanks once again.
Tron_954
New member
What about 3 Blue 1 coral, thought about 3 Blue 1 purple but tooooooo blue think.
TropTrea
New member
the best way to describe a coral plus is a comparison with a 4 bulb fixture. The light spectrum would be almost identical if you had
A 4 Coral Plus Bulbs
or
B 2 Blue Plus, 1 Purple Plus, and 1 Aqua Blue Special.
I will agree with RT that the Purple plus a coral plus in a 4 bulb fixture would probably be too much red. If you want to brighten it up but not as much as an Aqua Blue Special does than go wth 2 Coral Plus Bulbs.
If you look at the design of the coral plus ATI designed this bulb as a stand alone bulb. There designers though running just this bulb alone in various quantities would give the ideal light spectrum. However some of us disagree as we prefer tanks that are either more blue or brighter than this.
With lighting no combination will keep averyone happy. There is just too much personal preference and difference between individuals eyes.
TropTrea
New member
Thiswould be brighter that all blues. But you would nothave as much red. Another option would be 2 coral plus and 2 blue plus.
TropTrea
New member
This will vary by the corals your keeing. Some will glow a lot o florescense under blue lighting, others need a white light to reflect there reds. This then counters each other where you gain on one nend and loose out on the other.
What I'm running now is
front
LED strip Blue and Royal Blue
1 Blue Plus
2 Blue Plus
3 Purple Plus
4 GE 6500K
5 Purple Plus
6 Blue Plus
7Blue Plus
8 Blue Plus
rear
The LED's are predawn to post dusk and realy pop the florescense.
the 1 and 8 are dawn to dusk
and the middle 4 are mid day
YoungREEFA
New member
What i like about the coral plus is that it doesnt wash out colors
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
This right here.
It's a good full spectrum type bulb to help brighten things up but not lose the color.
I have also thought of using led. I've seen the ati fixture with a reef vrite attached to it, but it's a bit expensive for me at the moment specially with buying new bulbs. How do you have you led strip attached ? Also do you keep your led on during the whole day along with your lights from the ati?
I am still debating whether to add a white light in place of one of the blue + similar to yours. Young reefa suggested as you you also the purple plus and I searched to compare with fiji and found this article http://reefgizmo.com/2011/01/kz-fiji-purple-vs-ati-purple-plus/ brs has a special on the bulb which I want to try to get and give it a shot.
TropTrea
New member
Mu LED strip light is a DIY strip. It consists of 8 LED's on a single 1" X 2" Channel that I have at the front of tank angled back at a 35 degrree angle. The cost of the strip was roughly $32.00 for the 8 LED's, $16.00 for the 700 ma Driver (Meanwell LPC 35-700) and $7.00 for the 4" long Alumnium channeling. Total of about $55.00. I'm actualy ruynning 2 Royal Blue (454 nm), 2 True Blue (470 nm) and 2 Near UV LED's (420 nm) LED's. With your tank being only 26" long you only need 6 LED's. No Cooling is required for this strip as it only runns at under 20 Watts for me and with 6 leds yours would be under under 15 Watts.
Yes the LED's are on 14 hours per day and the tank is completly dark for 10 hours per day.
I looked at your article and will say that after working for GE lighting I take manufacturers spectrums with a grain of salt. If both of these bulbs are manufactured by Sulvania then I can assure you there are some simularities like the blue end of the spectrum that they noted. They could be using a different red peak though to seperate these bulbs being identical though. Now the thng with the red peak is that you do not want any large quantity of light in frequencies of 670 nm or longer. Longer frequency Red light encourages Cyno Bacteria growth even when nutraments are low. But Red light (orange to some people) in the 640 or les nm range does help some coral growth. Both will enhance the reflective reds in your tank on a visual prespective.
bpcardona
Trying to hard
Background:
I am sure this has been answered some where in the hundreds upon hundreds of post but I can't find it.
A couple of nights ago I had a icecap 660 fry. It was running my 4 blue t5s. I used the white ballast the next day until I got get a replacement. All worked well. Today I plugged the new Coral Vue 660, and the light, (4 blues) would flicker and turn off. I checked my connection, and all was well.
I am currently using the older icecap (the one that was running the whites) to run the blues, and it works fine. The new ballast was connected to the whites, and they worked fine.
Question:
I noticed the one of my blue bulbs is dim on one side. These bulbs are only 2-3 months old, so would hate to think they are bad. Is this a sign of a bad bulb? Could the icecap the fried caused this bulb to go?
The bulb is a Giesemann bulbs.
I am sure this has been answered some where in the hundreds upon hundreds of post but I can't find it.
A couple of nights ago I had a icecap 660 fry. It was running my 4 blue t5s. I used the white ballast the next day until I got get a replacement. All worked well. Today I plugged the new Coral Vue 660, and the light, (4 blues) would flicker and turn off. I checked my connection, and all was well.
I am currently using the older icecap (the one that was running the whites) to run the blues, and it works fine. The new ballast was connected to the whites, and they worked fine.
Question:
I noticed the one of my blue bulbs is dim on one side. These bulbs are only 2-3 months old, so would hate to think they are bad. Is this a sign of a bad bulb? Could the icecap the fried caused this bulb to go?
The bulb is a Giesemann bulbs.
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
If all wires and connections look good then it may be a bulb. Icecap ballasts are terrible for t5 bulbs. What length bulbs are you running?
bpcardona
Trying to hard
Wire connection look good on primary inspection. These are 48" bulbs. I have had everything running without issue for 7 months.
I just went to check the white (running on the new ballast), flicker and won't turn on. Just when everything was starting to take off!!!:headwally:
rtparty
Raise The Reef!
Very common with icecap ballasts and t5s. The icecaps are not designed for t5s. They overdrive them and kill bulbs.
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