Going with ATI Bulbs....

[lbannie]

Time to replace my bulbs...... I'm going with ATI T5's, I have 4 39watt bulbs to buy. I'm thinking of 1 Aqua Blue Special, 1 Blue Plus, and 2 True Actinic. Does that sound like a good combo?? I like a crisp look, and I want my corals to pop more! Should I do 2 blue plus and 1 actinic? Or should I mix other brands? I have coral wave bulbs now and my tank looks a bit washed out.... HELP

 

[carey]

The blue plus'es are quite blue. I would go with two specials and 2 blue pluses, or 2 specials, one blue plus and one actinic. Just depends on how blue you want it. The specials are at 12k spectrum so they already are a bit blue.

 

[joy13]

Do you have a reef tank? I was at a meeting last weekend on LED lighting and found out that people that were switching over were having problems because of no red spectrum in the lights. Same goes with T5's to much blue can effect the corals. I went with two special aquablue, a purple plus and a blue plus. If you have a fish only tank you can use any colors you want. I went on a recommendation of a local reefer on the color combination I didn't ask why but did notice the improvement in my tank right away.

 

[Gti_Leo]

i would go with two blue plus a purple plus and an aquablue the aquablues still hit some of the red spectrum as they are a full spectrum daylight.

i don't know how people with LEDs are faving issues with now red ,they are using white and blue. usually the whites are between 5000k and 8000k which have a good range of spectrum colors already in them.

but i would have to agree with joy, especially with SPS corals, since they are in shallower reefs and closer to the top, the water filters out less of the suns spectrum so it would seem that they would require a much wider spectrum of light