Why so much blue (lights)

cvrle1

Member
I dont have an axe to grind, or anything of sort, but curious why a lot of reef keepers love having their lights setup to be so blue. I get that corals will show different colors under blue light, and they will look all neon, but to me at least this looks so unnatural and fake. I have never dove anywhere where water is such blue color that corals are all neon looking, it doesnt exist.

To make things even worse, online stores are doing this too. Someone who doesnt know better thinks they are getting some amazing coral, only to find out it is regular run of the mill coral under normal light spectrum. And a kicker is they probably spent 10X more than they should have cause it had some fancy name to go with neon color.

Am I missing something here?
 
I honestly seen better color running my blues then whites and growth when I ran more whites which was at 25% I had a lot of bleaching on my Coral's


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To make things even worse, online stores are doing this too. Someone who doesnt know better thinks they are getting some amazing coral, only to find out it is regular run of the mill coral under normal light spectrum. And a kicker is they probably spent 10X more than they should have cause it had some fancy name to go with neon color.

Am I missing something here?
Its not what you are missing....its what you have..and thats common sense and a desire to replicate nature and not an acid trip..

Its what the cool kids are doing man....jeesh..
 
I never liked the overly blue lit tanks either.

My tank in 2010, 2 175w 10k metal halides and 2 actinc t5 for blue supplementation.
 
I am fairly new to the hobby but my understanding is that as you get deeper in the water other colors of the spectrum do not penetrate and you are left with mostly blue light. I run Radions and in their settings they say that blue light has led to the best coral growth from their study tanks. I am just looking to recreate a natural habitat to the best of my ability. I would honestly prefer less blue as I think it looks better but I would ultimately like to run what is best for the tank.
 
I am fairly new to the hobby but my understanding is that as you get deeper in the water other colors of the spectrum do not penetrate and you are left with mostly blue light. I run Radions and in their settings they say that blue light has led to the best coral growth from their study tanks. I am just looking to recreate a natural habitat to the best of my ability. I would honestly prefer less blue as I think it looks better but I would ultimately like to run what is best for the tank.



It depends on if you're throwing corals in at random based on looks, or if you're creating a specific biotope. It's not just as simple as more blue = natural and good, white light = bad.

Nutrient levels will dictate light levels as well. Some aquaculturists has high nutrient tanks with lots of fish and run low kelvin bulbs at very high par, while keeping mostly shallow water hard corals. Others run super lean water with basically no nutrients at all, dim blue lighting, and a lot of deep water coral. Others run a mix and keep everything kind of in the middle.

Red, yellow, and green light penetrate deeper than you might think. They're not filtered out within a few inches. I always get a good laugh when I hear "œ6500k and 10k bulbs don't penetrate, so don't use them in deeper tanks". Red light isn't attenuated out in 30". 30 feet maybe you might start seeing significant reduction...but at 2-3 feet you still have an absolute ton. Basically all of it.

The ab+ was created to be a happy medium. Providing enough to yield growth but still have fluorescent looking pictures for sales. Plenty of other led users prefer to run all channels at 100%. Who is right? The answer is whoever settles on a profile and leaves it alone


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It depends on if you're throwing corals in at random based on looks, or if you're creating a specific biotope. It's not just as simple as more blue = natural and good, white light = bad.

Nutrient levels will dictate light levels as well. Some aquaculturists has high nutrient tanks with lots of fish and run low kelvin bulbs at very high par, while keeping mostly shallow water hard corals. Others run super lean water with basically no nutrients at all, dim blue lighting, and a lot of deep water coral. Others run a mix and keep everything kind of in the middle.

Red, yellow, and green light penetrate deeper than you might think. They're not filtered out within a few inches. I always get a good laugh when I hear "œ6500k and 10k bulbs don't penetrate, so don't use them in deeper tanks". Red light isn't attenuated out in 30". 30 feet maybe you might start seeing significant reduction...but at 2-3 feet you still have an absolute ton. Basically all of it.

The ab+ was created to be a happy medium. Providing enough to yield growth but still have fluorescent looking pictures for sales. Plenty of other led users prefer to run all channels at 100%. Who is right? The answer is whoever settles on a profile and leaves it alone


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I am not talking about the depth of your tank though, I am talking about the depth your corals would be found in the ocean. Many are in the 10-30 feet of water range and therefore you want to try to recreate those conditions in your tank.
 
I am not talking about the depth of your tank though, I am talking about the depth your corals would be found in the ocean. Many are in the 10-30 feet of water range and therefore you want to try to recreate those conditions in your tank.

Yes and no. In nature, when diving at around 15 or so feet is when red starts to taper off dramatically and by 30ft its almost all gone. It doesn't fully go away visibly until 100 or so feet where a coke can looks black but a small amount will penetrate all the way down to 500ft . There is no spot on the reef that looks like royal blue leds.

Here is one of my videos taken around 35-40ft depth with a red filter. Without that filter it would all be washed out. No where close to a royal blue or even blue+ T5. These crazy blue LEDs are in no way shape or form natural lighting conditions for any corals we keep in the hobby. Hard or soft.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bS4Iqlx2n4A" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
I am not talking about the depth of your tank though, I am talking about the depth your corals would be found in the ocean. Many are in the 10-30 feet of water range and therefore you want to try to recreate those conditions in your tank.



Not trying to be snarky, but as mentioned. Especially when speaking of sps, much of what we keep is/can be collected wading or snorkeling. In low tide they're out of the water entirely. The Indonesia acro farms are all pretty close to the surface.

Shot of low tide on the Great Barrier Reef.
17fc5b0ed7741a77d9fda0b07e48da0c.jpg


I'm not saying the ab+ program is wrong or bad. But what I am saying is the success of it lies not in the operating spectrum, but in the fact that they set it and forget it. I am also saying low kelvin lighting, be it from gas burning bulbs, or from an led tuning standpoint, isn't a bad thing, and running a tank super blue isn't necessarily a more perfect simulation of nature.


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Also, here is 55 foot depth, 20 or so minutes after sunrise. Jumped into the water just as the sun was coming over the horizon. No filter. Cool thing is if you ignore our scuba sounds you can hear whales singing in the background :D

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IDVLPSnjjZI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Also, here is 55 foot depth, 20 or so minutes after sunrise. Jumped into the water just as the sun was coming over the horizon. No filter. Cool thing is if you ignore our scuba sounds you can hear whales singing in the background :D

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IDVLPSnjjZI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>



Looks like the ati blue+ bulb.


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Looks like the ati blue+ bulb.


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Yup, for about 40 or so minutes. As soon as the sun gets over the horizon by much it changes dramatically. Has roughly the intensity of two 39w t5 blue+ over a 600gal tank. Very dim. The flashlight tells it all regarding the intensity.
 
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