Just a small update.
I recently purchased a kz superblue bulb to try out and thus far I'm impressed. It doesn't have enough burn in time yet for me to make an official decision but if it holds color through the burn in stages, I will be switching from the ATI blue plus.
I put the superblue in my second slot and a blue plus in my fifth slot. I let the bulbs warm up while I did other things. When I came back I compared the bulbs and could tell the superblue was a deeper blue than the ATI. Thinking it may just be a placebo effect I got my brother (art major) to see if he noticed a difference. I told him nothing about the bulbs but just wanted to know if he could see a color difference. He said, "yeah, the one in front is more blue and less green." He knows nothing about aquarium lighting but is an art major and knows his colors, lol.
I then sandwiched the superblue between two blue plus so I could really see the difference. The difference isn't huge but enough to notice. Like I mentioned pages ago, I'm finding that the blue plus bulbs have been shifting more green over the years and I don't care for it. The superblue looks identical to a blue plus from 3-4 years ago, to my eyes.
I would say it is peaking around 450nm whereas the blue plus is really closer to 470nm these days.
I will continue to monitor the burn in stage and see if it shifts away from the deeper blue but most people say the superblue is a deeper, richer blue. I'm starting to see that and at only a $4 difference, I'll pay for the better looks.
Just a small update.
I recently purchased a kz superblue bulb to try out and thus far I'm impressed. It doesn't have enough burn in time yet for me to make an official decision but if it holds color through the burn in stages, I will be switching from the ATI blue plus.
I put the superblue in my second slot and a blue plus in my fifth slot. I let the bulbs warm up while I did other things. When I came back I compared the bulbs and could tell the superblue was a deeper blue than the ATI. Thinking it may just be a placebo effect I got my brother (art major) to see if he noticed a difference. I told him nothing about the bulbs but just wanted to know if he could see a color difference. He said, "yeah, the one in front is more blue and less green." He knows nothing about aquarium lighting but is an art major and knows his colors, lol.
I then sandwiched the superblue between two blue plus so I could really see the difference. The difference isn't huge but enough to notice. Like I mentioned pages ago, I'm finding that the blue plus bulbs have been shifting more green over the years and I don't care for it. The superblue looks identical to a blue plus from 3-4 years ago, to my eyes.
I would say it is peaking around 450nm whereas the blue plus is really closer to 470nm these days.
I will continue to monitor the burn in stage and see if it shifts away from the deeper blue but most people say the superblue is a deeper, richer blue. I'm starting to see that and at only a $4 difference, I'll pay for the better looks.
Just a small update.
I recently purchased a kz superblue bulb to try out and thus far I'm impressed. It doesn't have enough burn in time yet for me to make an official decision but if it holds color through the burn in stages, I will be switching from the ATI blue plus.
I put the superblue in my second slot and a blue plus in my fifth slot. I let the bulbs warm up while I did other things. When I came back I compared the bulbs and could tell the superblue was a deeper blue than the ATI. Thinking it may just be a placebo effect I got my brother (art major) to see if he noticed a difference. I told him nothing about the bulbs but just wanted to know if he could see a color difference. He said, "yeah, the one in front is more blue and less green." He knows nothing about aquarium lighting but is an art major and knows his colors, lol.
I then sandwiched the superblue between two blue plus so I could really see the difference. The difference isn't huge but enough to notice. Like I mentioned pages ago, I'm finding that the blue plus bulbs have been shifting more green over the years and I don't care for it. The superblue looks identical to a blue plus from 3-4 years ago, to my eyes.
I would say it is peaking around 450nm whereas the blue plus is really closer to 470nm these days.
I will continue to monitor the burn in stage and see if it shifts away from the deeper blue but most people say the superblue is a deeper, richer blue. I'm starting to see that and at only a $4 difference, I'll pay for the better looks.
They revamped all their bulbs about two years ago. They also made a change to their boxes to reflect this. That way you could tell between old and new.
I know reef builders had an article on it and I had private messages from Oliver Pritzel (president of ATI) that they were making the change. They bumped PAR and made them last a little longer. I'm thinking the "bump" in PAR may have just been removing some low end spectrum that PAR meters don't read and adding light in the "sweet spot". That does nothing for PUR however. That is just a theory though. I can only report on what I see and observe. The blue plus bulbs are not the blue they used to be.
I will monitor the superblue and see if I notice any changes. I see no difference between a purple plus and Fiji purple though and I've had then side by side as well. I may have to get new of each and see though....
I'm in the middle of building an LED/T5 hybrid right now and plan to run 2 superblue and 2 coral plus for my T5s. I will post pics when it is ready in a few weeks/months.
