What about 6500k lighting for SPS?

[jjmcat]

clean water is a good thing I will admit but the color temperature of the bulbs is what gives the corals their color. IMO

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature2

 

[TwistedTiger]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7313352#post7313352 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jjmcat
clean water is a good thing I will admit but the color temperature of the bulbs is what gives the corals their color. IMO

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature2

From that article...."It has been measured that the PAR of 6,500 K bulbs is much higher than the PAR of 10,000K or 20,000K bulbs, but from the strict point of view of color preservation, the latter provide much better results."

With my own eyes I have seen many more colorful SPS tanks with 6500-10000K than I have from 14000-20000K. Yes the water itself is more colorful at 20K but I'm calling BS on SPS having better color under 20K.

 

[reefman77]

I think yellower bulbs look more natural. bluer bulbs seem to give a faker look. i also agree that 6500k is ok but you will most deffinetly need to supliment with acitnic

 

[Shawnts106]

Yes the water itself is more colorful at 20K but I'm calling BS on SPS having better color under 20K

I second that BIGTIME!!!

WQ and Mimicing natural sunlight is the key to growing any coral....

 

[zaheda]

Has anybody used Osram Powerstar 400w daylight. I want to supplement it with 4 x 54w t5

 

[agsansoo]

I second that BIGTIME!!!

WQ and Mimicing natural sunlight is the key to growing any coral....

I'm going to agree also. My water color looks great under 20K lighting, but my corals suffer. 10K-12K works best for me.

 

[jjmcat]

I forgot about this old thread.

 

[Lyfey]

I have always heard from a well know aquaculturist known in this area that the best tanks are lit with 50/50 6500k / 20000k lighting.

 

[maestro]

I ran an iwasaki 6500 on my frag tank, I found some corals did well and some bleached out.

Growth was very good, especially on the monti digis which seemed to love the high light, a frag would honestly grow 1cm a week.

Alot of folks used to run 6500's a good few years ago but then the BLV's and xm10K's came along and to be honest there isnt that much difference in output, I also think 10K is more like what the corals receive in the wild about 10 meters down.

on my main tank I had good growth using a 50/50 mix of 6500 and 20K t5's but the colour was ugly and I had to change

xm10k's are my favourite for sps growth and colour.

 

[zaheda]

Is there anybody currently running there display tank with 6500K halides?

 

[fijiblue]

Has anybody used Osram Powerstar 400w daylight. I want to supplement it with 4 x 54w t5

I actually run the opposite. I run 250 Phoenix 14k MH's with Osram 6500 daylight T5's for supps. The color looks amazing and some of the colors I have achieved with the daylights would have never been possible otherwise.

Pic of some Milli frags:

 

[agsansoo]

fijiblue, do you have a FTS with this lighting combo ?