The T5 Q&a Thread - split
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i have a long tentacle anemone and a frog spawn coral
i have a long tentacle anemone and a frog spawn coral
i wanted to know what bulbs i needs for my coralife 48 inch t5 ho fixture they seem to be doing okay but i want them to flourish and thive its a 4 bulb fixture please i want a good mix between purple and white thank you
current tank 70 gallon bow front with a rusty angel, 2 ocellaris clownfish, a spotted hawkfish, a yellow tang, a diamond goby, a 6 line wrasse, and a royal gramma, and a long tentacle anemone and a frog spawn coral
i have a long tentacle anemone and a frog spawn coral
i wanted to know what bulbs i needs for my coralife 48 inch t5 ho fixture they seem to be doing okay but i want them to flourish and thive its a 4 bulb fixture please i want a good mix between purple and white thank you
current tank 70 gallon bow front with a rusty angel, 2 ocellaris clownfish, a spotted hawkfish, a yellow tang, a diamond goby, a 6 line wrasse, and a royal gramma, and a long tentacle anemone and a frog spawn coral
Last edited:
TropTrea
New member
Frog Spawn is not extremely particular on light like some other corals are. It is a coral that I found very interesting with LED's though. Simply changing the wave length of blue light light slightly drastically changes the color they fluoresce. But they look fantastic with a lot of blue light.
With most anemone they general like a lot of light but will move around in the tank to a point where they are happy. With your fish combination you also want to bring out the reflective reds and yellows in the fish.
I would go in your case with 2 Blue Plus Bulbs, 1 Aqua Blue Special and 1 Purple Plus bulb. Unfortunately for 70 gallons 4 bulbs will hit the bare minimum for lighting Hopefuly you have your corals in the upper 1/2 of the tank directly under the lights.
This tank would be ideal for supplementing with some LED's though considering its shape and lighting needs.
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
Definitely. Here is a 30x30x24 with a 8x24watt ATI Unit.
<iframe width="853" height="480" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/pX-aQV9B_vc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
As you can see its growing SPS, LPS etc just fine.
Froggy
Reef "Hobbyist"...right!?
Just thought I would post up a lighting combo that I have settled on that I really love so others can consider trying it themselves as an option.I have been doing some tinkering with bulb combos since early December. All ATI bulbs
Front
Blue plus
Purple plus
Blue plus
Blue plus
Coral plus
Blue plus
Purple plus
Blue plus
Back
I tried a few combos and initially used an aquablue special in place of the coral plus. I thought I liked it but over time it wore on me the wrong way. My original combo last year included a GE 6500 in place of the coral plus but I wanted to go bluer overall and my above combo suits me perfectly. Coral color is represented well in SPS and LPS. I even tried an actinic bulb in place of one of the blue plus but ended up going back to all blue plus.
Joe
Front
Blue plus
Purple plus
Blue plus
Blue plus
Coral plus
Blue plus
Purple plus
Blue plus
Back
I tried a few combos and initially used an aquablue special in place of the coral plus. I thought I liked it but over time it wore on me the wrong way. My original combo last year included a GE 6500 in place of the coral plus but I wanted to go bluer overall and my above combo suits me perfectly. Coral color is represented well in SPS and LPS. I even tried an actinic bulb in place of one of the blue plus but ended up going back to all blue plus.
Joe
Froggy
Reef "Hobbyist"...right!?
Hey Sahin, doing great but overcoming a few tank struggles recently. Must be something in the air as it seems a lot of us have had some hiccups.
My problems were of my own dumb making. My heater wasn't keeping up in the frigid Michigan winter as the tank is in the basement. The heater was pretty old and I noticed things were really off. Come to find out my tank has been running at 70 degrees F for who knows how long. My auto doser was also not keeping up and my Alk dipped to 6.4 DKH and was probably that way for a while. Long story short I bought 2 new heaters ( maintaining a constant 78 F )and have dialed in my dosers to maintain ALK at 8 DKH. I lost a hydnophora to RTN and had to chop up my Hawkins but seem to have saved it. I have always been a run the tank by feel kind if guy (I'm a dope). All honesty my wife saved my tank and made me order new test kits and check the tank temp. By my hand I should have killed the whole tank. Corals are hardier than we give them credit for. I, or should I say my wife, saved my tank and all corals except the one loss are making a rallying comeback. I will be a test regularly kind if guy now!!!!
Sorry for the long ramble to interrupt the topic. Back to the lighting!!
Those are great tanks you referenced Sahin! I am sure I have settled on that combo!
Joe
My problems were of my own dumb making. My heater wasn't keeping up in the frigid Michigan winter as the tank is in the basement. The heater was pretty old and I noticed things were really off. Come to find out my tank has been running at 70 degrees F for who knows how long. My auto doser was also not keeping up and my Alk dipped to 6.4 DKH and was probably that way for a while. Long story short I bought 2 new heaters ( maintaining a constant 78 F )and have dialed in my dosers to maintain ALK at 8 DKH. I lost a hydnophora to RTN and had to chop up my Hawkins but seem to have saved it. I have always been a run the tank by feel kind if guy (I'm a dope). All honesty my wife saved my tank and made me order new test kits and check the tank temp. By my hand I should have killed the whole tank. Corals are hardier than we give them credit for. I, or should I say my wife, saved my tank and all corals except the one loss are making a rallying comeback. I will be a test regularly kind if guy now!!!!
Sorry for the long ramble to interrupt the topic. Back to the lighting!!
Those are great tanks you referenced Sahin! I am sure I have settled on that combo!
Joe
Av8bluewater
New member
Nice.. what bulbs are you using?
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
D
Deep Reef
I am currently using on my lps/sps tank
Front
ATI B+
ATI B+
ATI P+
GE 65K
ATI B+
ATI B+
I have a couple of questions. Does it make sense to use an ATI aquablue special in lieu of the GE? Also to get more pop out of the tank is it better to substitute an ATI True Actinic for one of the B+ bulbs? The front and back bulbs are my dusk / dawn set.
thanks
Front
ATI B+
ATI B+
ATI P+
GE 65K
ATI B+
ATI B+
I have a couple of questions. Does it make sense to use an ATI aquablue special in lieu of the GE? Also to get more pop out of the tank is it better to substitute an ATI True Actinic for one of the B+ bulbs? The front and back bulbs are my dusk / dawn set.
thanks
Froggy
Reef "Hobbyist"...right!?
Deep Reef,
Does it make sense? I guess that is really personal taste on the look you want. I used the GE6500 bulb for 2 years and really liked it. Over time, my personal taste skewed toward the bluer end of the spectrum so I stopped using the GE bulb. I tried the aquablue special for a couple of months and initially liked it but something about it didn't quite do it for me. I settled on using the coral plus bulb and like the look. I also used an actinic bulb for a couple of months and it gave an extra kick of fluorescence directly under the bulb but was overpowered elsewhere in the tank. I went back to all blue plus and scrapped the actinic tube. My combo in my above post is what I like to look at and seems to be balanced to my eye. I recommend picking up a couple of bulbs to try and see if you like it but do give it a week or so without changes to truly gauge your opinion. When you take the GE bulb out your initial reaction will be shock to your eyes and you may or may not like what you initially see.
Does it make sense? I guess that is really personal taste on the look you want. I used the GE6500 bulb for 2 years and really liked it. Over time, my personal taste skewed toward the bluer end of the spectrum so I stopped using the GE bulb. I tried the aquablue special for a couple of months and initially liked it but something about it didn't quite do it for me. I settled on using the coral plus bulb and like the look. I also used an actinic bulb for a couple of months and it gave an extra kick of fluorescence directly under the bulb but was overpowered elsewhere in the tank. I went back to all blue plus and scrapped the actinic tube. My combo in my above post is what I like to look at and seems to be balanced to my eye. I recommend picking up a couple of bulbs to try and see if you like it but do give it a week or so without changes to truly gauge your opinion. When you take the GE bulb out your initial reaction will be shock to your eyes and you may or may not like what you initially see.
TropTrea
New member
Yes personal taste is the big issue here. The big thing is with 4 Blue plus bulbs you are giving the corals as much blue light that they require. You also need a little red and full spectrum to break the deep blue look. But this is where personal choice comes into play.
The Atinic I would not even consider on a 6 bulb fixture. On a narrow tank with 8 bulbs yes you could use an atinic if you do not have a lot of high demanding light corals.
Color wise your roughly the bightest you can get with the GE bulb and purple plus. The next step bluer would be an Aqua Blue Special with a purple plus. Then you can even go bluer with two Coral Plus bulbs and not using a Purple Plus.
And finally the Bluest that looks reasonable would be one Coral Plus and 5 Blue Plus.
It is all personal color taste between these combinations.
TropTrea
New member
This is a good point. Over time your eye adjusts to the new color. So let it sit a week minimum. Then switch back to the original and look at it again. before you consider making the change permanent. Often day one the shock of the bluer look will stun you and you will notice the difference in some colors., but get used to it over the time period. But then when you switch back you will say yes I liked this and that with the new combination however the old one did give me this or that I realy will miss that old effect. This is especially true when you have loads of reflective colors involved like your fish.
D
Deep Reef
Thank a lot you have both been alot of help
ReeferMark
New member
TropTrea,
Do you happen to have any PAR readings with your light combo's? Just curious as I have a 6-lamp AquaticLife fixture with following combo:
Actinic
Purple +
Coral +
Blue +
Aqua-Blue (12K)
Actinic
All bulbs are ATI. I get a PAR reading of around 540 10" below the lights where all the SPS corals are.
Do you happen to have any PAR readings with your light combo's? Just curious as I have a 6-lamp AquaticLife fixture with following combo:
Actinic
Purple +
Coral +
Blue +
Aqua-Blue (12K)
Actinic
All bulbs are ATI. I get a PAR reading of around 540 10" below the lights where all the SPS corals are.
TropTrea
New member
I do not put a lot on PAR readings. But a friend took some par Reading about 18 months ago for me. At the substrate I was getting 220 PAR, very uniformly. at at 12" below the surface I was ranging between 400 and 450 par, and at 4" from the surface I was ranging from 760 to 999 par. Note 999 was the highest reading his meter gave.
I was and still am running 8 bulbs on a custom rebuilt fixture using 1 GE 6,500K, 2 Purple Plus, and 5 Blue Plus Bulbs. That is sitting 4" above the tank. Since then I added a custom DIY LED strip with an added 30 watts of LED's in a Royal Blue 454nm and near UV 420nm combination.
I liked the custom strip better on its first build with 50/50 split of 430nm and 454 nm LED's but the 430's did not last more than 3 months. The 410-420's I replaced them with are going strong for over a year now.
ReeferMark
New member
Do you think it would help at all to replace my Actinic's with the Blue +?
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