The T5 Q&a Thread - split

[wcharon]

Actinic blue has significant output Violet and Blue wavelengths from 400Nm all the way through about 470:

Compare that to a blue plus, which peaks higher in the blue range and extends more toward the cyan:

The Super actinic is Violet only, not blue:

I have found it adds a lot of color without making the whole tank look bluish. When there is too much blue light it starts making other colors look different in my experience, i.e. reds look brownish, yellows look greenish, etc. I use two Super actinic in my 8 bulb sun power an absolutely love it.

EXCELLENT information... Now you really got me thinking... because if the Super Actinic is purple then i will have 2 purples (Super Actinic and Purple +) on the tank which i think is not a good idea.

Overall i will have to give both a try because i was only thinking to chane one of my Blue+ for a Actinic but not sur ewhich one. Any other recommendation will be appreciated.

Once again. Thanks...Here is a pic of my tank...

 

[mhucasey]

Actinic Violet and "Purple" bulbs are two different things, the Purple bulbs are red and blue dominant bulbs. In my opinion you need a purple bulb regardless to bring out the reds. I use the following on my tank:
Front to back:
Blue Plus
Aquablue Azure
Super actinic
Fiji Purple
Super Actinic
Actinic Blue
Aquablue Special
KZ New Gen

This produces a very rich, colorful tank with a overall white color, just a tinge of blue. My tank with this combo:

A little less blue in real life...

 

[mhucasey]

And I posted a while back regarding actinics, they produce lower par numbers but that is mostly because the Par meter cannot read them correctly. The 420nm peak is spot on for what the coral needs chlorophyl wise, so when these bulbs are evaluated for Photosynthetically Usable Radiation(PUR) they out-perform quite a few higher Par bulbs.

So the take home here is don't worry about the PAR so much.

 

[wcharon]

Thanks Mhucasey...

Your tank really have great colors specially those red, blue and greens. I will give both Actinics a try because my main problem is with the brown color and i see that your browns looks good.

Thanks for all your help Buddy.

 

[mhucasey]

You're very welcome, I've become a big believer in the Actinic Bulbs and I'm trying to spread the word
A note on coral color - much of the color of acroporas is fluorescent color - the corals re-purpose light of one wavelength and emit it at another wavelength. The majority of the wavelengths that corals do this with are violets, blues, and cyans. When you provide the whole range of light under 500nm, the corals can bring out the colors we are looking for. Under actinic light you can see this clearly, not only greens fluoresce, but there are pinks, blues, and reds that show up. If these were not flourescent colors, under blue or violet light reds would look black for example. When full spectrum light is combined with the blue and violet, you can see the reflective colors as well as the fluorescent color combined and the overall look is very rich. In my experience its hard to do that with just blue and white bulbs only, to get the really rich color you need too many of the blue bulbs and the tank looks dim and the overall color looks too blue for me. Replacing some of the blue with actinic corrects this problem.

 

[swk]

Trop, you are right. The true PAR of actinic is higher than the apogee meter reads. We have a calibrated spectrometer in our lab and the Apogee meter normally underreads violet (+/- 25%).
But our blue plus is defently better in PAR. Especially, if it comes to PAR and PUR.

In contrast to most common blue fluorecent lamps we use a modified version of the blue fluorescent powder (BAM-Blue) with a co-activator in our Blue plus tubes.
We have a max. @453-454nm instead of 450nm. Hard to see with human eyes, but a useful thing if it comes to PUR.
So, we had biological reasons to made this smal modification 5 year ago.
I know that more and more people love to see dark blue bulbs or actinic bulbs, but we have to consider what corals really need. And this is a broad or wide banded blue with a maxima that is close to "Absorbtionsmaxima" of the symbiotic algeas in Corals.

regards,
Oliver
(ATI Aqauristik)

Just wanted to share this post and introduce this to the current discussion espousing the benefits of the true actinic bulbs. This guy knows a little about the subject lol...

 

[acabgd]

Well, I asked fhe question about ATI Actinic and no-one replied, but I decided to give it a try anyway. Got a strange purple hue which I didn't expect. Let's see what extra growth will it produce, if any.

 

[mhucasey]

Just wanted to share this post and introduce this to the current discussion espousing the benefits of the true actinic bulbs. This guy knows a little about the subject lol...

I saw this a while ago and It seemed to make sense, but the problem is that he is talking about Chlorophyl B absorption peaks, which the blue plus bulb does hit right on. Unfortunately Corals have chlorophyl A, which has an absorbance peak of 420NM.

It seems to me that targeting a chlorophyl that isn't in corals is not valuable. Maybe I'm missing something. Blue light through those ranges can do great things for color by exciting fluorescent pigments, so there are uses for the blue light, but it is an inefficient source of energy for Chlorophyl A.

I looked at a lot of spectrums from metal halide bulbs to see what the "Fast growth" bulbs did differently than the "Great color" bulbs. One major difference was that the "Good Growth" bulbs had big 420nm peaks, in fact the biggest peak was there. A much smaller blue peak around 460 was also present. The "Great color(slower growth)" bulbs(like the radium) have all the blue output at 450 or 460, and almost nothing at 420. With T5s I can add Both 420 and 460 light and get the best of both worlds.

 

[mhucasey]

Well, I asked fhe question about ATI Actinic and no-one replied, but I decided to give it a try anyway. Got a strange purple hue which I didn't expect. Let's see what extra growth will it produce, if any.

The ATI bulb is a standard Actinic 420nm Spectrum(sometimes called actinic 03). The ATI bulb has a bit of a low output compared to other brands, but color wise its the same as other actinics. By itself it will give off a very dim violet hue , but it will bring out the fluorescence in the corals. What other bulbs are you pairing it with?

 

[acabgd]

Yeah, visibly violet hue, not purple as I've said. Got 3xB+, 2xC+ and the Actinic (ATI 6x39W)

 

[DiscusHeckel]

... Under actinic light you can see this clearly, not only greens fluoresce, but there are pinks, blues, and reds that show up. If these were not flourescent colors, under blue or violet light reds would look black for example. When full spectrum light is combined with the blue and violet, you can see the reflective colors as well as the fluorescent color combined and the overall look is very rich. In my experience its hard to do that with just blue and white bulbs only, to get the really rich color you need too many of the blue bulbs and the tank looks dim and the overall color looks too blue for me. Replacing some of the blue with actinic corrects this problem.

Are you saying that pink, blue and red are fluorescent colours? if so, I beg to differ. They are in fact reflective colours. Actinic and blue spectrum bring out fluorescent colours not the reflective ones.

Take a look at Scotty's tank under ATI Blue + and ATI Actinic. Would you say that his pink Stylophora hystrix fluoresce under this combination? Then take a look at the same coral under a more balanced light, which contains not only daylight bulbs, but also blue and actinic spectrum.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

 

[mhucasey]

Are you saying that pink, blue and red are fluorescent colours? if so, I beg to differ. They are in fact reflective colours. Actinic and blue spectrum bring out fluorescent colours not the reflective ones.

Take a look at Scotty's tank under ATI Blue + and ATI Actinic. Would you say that his pink Stylophora hystrix fluoresce under this combination? Then take a look at the same coral under a more balanced light, which contains not only daylight bulbs, but also blue and actinic spectrum.

Sorry if I misunderstood you.

Not every pink, blue, and red are fluorescent, but there are some. I have a strawberry shortcake for example that has glowing pink tips under actinic and blue bulbs only. here it is under full spectrum plus actinic:

Lots of blues and reds do as well, especially montipora for red/orange. Under full spectrum light, some other colors are reflected that are not fluorescent pigments. If you can balance the light correctly, you can see the combination of these fluorescent and reflective colors and in some cases the addition of both is pretty rich and amazing.

 

[mhucasey]

And yes, in the tank pics you linked to the pink stylo is all reflective. In the same photo, notice the Orange/red monti? It is fluorescing Orange/red under blue light and is a rich red/orange under full spectrum. The flourescent colors can create a depth to some colors that is really nice.

 

[mhucasey]

Here is the SSC I posted under An actinic and an actinic blue. See how the red of it and the monti are fluorescing?

For comparison, a reflective color under sunlight:

Here it is under Actinic blue - the red is almost wiped out. In the background there are montis and to the lower right a red planet that are fluorescing red:

 

[mhucasey]

Yeah, visibly violet hue, not purple as I've said. Got 3xB+, 2xC+ and the Actinic (ATI 6x39W)

One of the reasons I dislike the coral plus is the pinkish purplish hue it adds to the tank. It may be the combination of both the coral plusses and the actinic that are causing it. Try putting a blue plus and the actinic on the 2 bulb dawn/dusk circuit and after running all the bulbs , turn off the two bulb circuit. If the Violet goes away, it was the actinic. If not, its due to the coral plusses.

 

[dabob79]

One of the reasons I dislike the coral plus is the pinkish purplish hue it adds to the tank. It may be the combination of both the coral plusses and the actinic that are causing it. Try putting a blue plus and the actinic on the 2 bulb dawn/dusk circuit and after running all the bulbs , turn off the two bulb circuit. If the Violet goes away, it was the actinic. If not, its due to the coral plusses.

Are you using any LEDs to supplement during the day or for lunar lights at night? I LOVE the colors you have, and I was looking at the same fixture. I just really want that shimmer effect that you get from LEDs or HQI, and I HAVE to have lunar LEDs. Beautiful tank BTW, I have a 93g rimless cube I'm about to set up myself!

 

[mhucasey]

Are you using any LEDs to supplement during the day or for lunar lights at night? I LOVE the colors you have, and I was looking at the same fixture. I just really want that shimmer effect that you get from LEDs or HQI, and I HAVE to have lunar LEDs. Beautiful tank BTW, I have a 93g rimless cube I'm about to set up myself!

Sorry, no LEDs on the tank. I'm not that much of a fan of shimmer, actually. I did see a cool technique where a small kessil was angled from the side to provide some shimmer on a tank with a Powermodule over it, but I'm not able to find the video right now. Just keep in mind the more coverage that you have, the stronger the point source light will have to be to overcome the cancellation and create shimmer.

 

[swk]

One of the reasons I dislike the coral plus is the pinkish purplish hue it adds to the tank. It may be the combination of both the coral plusses and the actinic that are causing it. Try putting a blue plus and the actinic on the 2 bulb dawn/dusk circuit and after running all the bulbs , turn off the two bulb circuit. If the Violet goes away, it was the actinic. If not, its due to the coral plusses.

I use 4b+ and 2 c+ in my sunpower and I get none of what you describe. I've tried many combos and keep coming back to it. Jmo

 

[wcharon]

I use 4b+ and 2 c+ in my sunpower and I get none of what you describe. I've tried many combos and keep coming back to it. Jmo

In what order you have them?

 

[mhucasey]

Color Preference is just that, a preference, and not everyone will like the same color. My issues with C+ have been when they are paired with other white bulbs, not just blue. Here is an interesting comparison though. I took a shot of my current lighting:

Then I put in six bulbs, 2 C+ and 4 B+. This is what it looked like in comparison:

The pictures are unre-touched iPhone 6 shots. My impression of the second combo was that it was very "Crystal" blue, bright but too blue for my tastes. The reds, in particular, were too muddy for me. I can see why you would like the combo though, the overall color was a very pretty blue and the fluorescence was good.