Finally Got It Right

[HappyGeorge]

Finally got my reef tank lights sorted.

I have a 6 x 39w sunpower unit and was running 2 iquatics atinics,2 iquatics blue plus and 2 iquatics 10k white, but it was just too white and everything looked very brown, all the brown zoas and the xenia looked the same colour and the green zoas weren't popping. I switched one of the whites for another blue plus but it then looked too blue and the fish didn't look right. So finally bought a DD pink bulb and switched out the extra blue plus.
It's now outside bulbs blue plus and the two centre ones 10k white and pink, with the pink nearer the front.

Not a very interesting post but may help someone who is fiddling with finding a satisfying combination, the torch, soft mushrooms and zoas really glow as do the centres of the daisy polyps and the colours of the fish look superb.

 

[Stampos]

I just changed mine to a 6500k, blue plus, 6500k, blue plus and it looks pretty awesome! Very very blue though!

I'm swapping a daylight bulb for a 14k on Sunday to see if it whitens it up a touch

 

[seffieuk]

Interesting, do you have any photos of the different effects you got with the tubes?

 

[HappyGeorge]

Interesting, do you have any photos of the different effects you got with the tubes?

If you mean can I change them all back again and then do photos for comparison, no I can't!

To be honest even though my Nikon has a dial in colour temp setting, it doesn't show the true colours all that well. I will do a new video of the tank and see how well the colour shows through on that, and if it shows well I will stick the blue back in place of the pink and see if it shows up.
The main difference is the vibrancy and the range of colours now, rock is more purple, pink, red. Greens are more green etc etc is just seems to give the colours greater seperation.

 

[Stampos]

I've got comparisons, from horrible yellow to cool reef blue

 

[woody88]

The top pic looks Like a Malawi setup and the bottom pic a marine setup!

 

[HappyGeorge]

The top pic looks Like a Malawi setup and the bottom pic a marine setup!

Made me reminisce about my Malawi set up

Amazing that this is exactly the same lights

 

[seffieuk]

Wow, that is a massive difference, i'm now looking at mine and thinking...............

 

[HappyGeorge]

Sorry that may be misleading Seffie, the pics are my 5ft which is lit with the same T8 light bar with a blue marine/tropical powerglo bulb combo in both pictures, I took the light bar out of my Rena tank before I sold it and it now lights the 5ft godiva FOWLR. Not the reef which the original post was about.

 

[Stampos]

I definitely think flourescent lighting is the best choice as far as output/cost/colour go.

 

[HappyGeorge]

I definitely think flourescent lighting is the best choice as far as output/cost/colour go.

Totally agree mate, I also have yet to see evidence of MH achieving anything T5 won't apart from burning stuff, given that softies are growing in my T8 lit 5ft and hystrix growing like crazy towards the bottom of my 24" high T5 lit reef, other stuff in there doesn't require strong light but the Zoas, Xenia, Fire coral all growing out of control. I have to say my Hystrix frag looks far healthier than the mother colony in the LFS that is lit with MH. For the cost of running and buying MH and the poor colour options, intrusive nature of most fittings and the heat produced I have yet to see any proof of anything being achieved that can't be done with descreet, cheap, T5's.

I know a lot of you have MH and it isn't a dig it's just my experience, after being told by numerous people I wouldn't be able to keep anything exciting coral wise under T5's, in fact if you work out my 6 x 39w in 380l its pretty much at the bottom of the recommended watts per gallon, but I know people pretty much ignore that these days.