"Desired" Lighting Mix

I have been spending the week reading about lighting. I have a fixture with 6 48" T5 and am looking to augment the lighting and replace my old bulbs.

Correct my learning here.

Higher frequency light penetrates deeper through salt water. Therefore, the blues, purples get more energy deeper into the tank for lower corals.

Corals are photosynthetic and "generally" need a "saddle" of the spectrum. A spike in the red/yellow part of the spectrum, a spike in the blue and some green in between.

Thus, you'd want your light to have a bias to 450nm and 650nm with some in between. The human eye sees best around 580nm.

So for simplicity, I'll categorize into 3 spectrums : Blue 400-475nm , Green 475-575nm, Yellow 575-675nm.

A bulb like UVL Super Actinic R only provides light in the Blue Range.
A bulb like UVL Red Sun only provides light in the Yellow Red range 633nm.
AGiesemann Midday 6000 focuses more on the Green Range.

So let's say I used those red bulbs as a base.

I'd then want to add more blue for water depth and probably more Green.

The UVL Red Sun might be a bit dominant in red. So, replace it with two UVL Aquasun's. The Aquasun's have a bit of all the categories: Blue, Green and Yellow. Add another Giesemann Midday 6000 because it captures the intermediate frequencies. Add a KZ Fiji Purple to capture more high frquency.

That would give the following mix to my 6 bulb T5 fixture.
2 UVL Aquasun's
2 Giesemann Midday 6000
1 UVL Super Actinic R
1 KZ Fiji Purple


What would you think of this combination???

M

 

It will be very yellow, but you should get a lot of growth.

 

I don't know how much you are going to love the look of the combo you propose. Lots of yellow/white, basically no blue (your UVL superactinic has relatively low PAR and will wash out very readily with the other bulbs you propose). What have you been running in the past? My own preferences with a 6-bulb fixture (front to back) would be something like:

ATI blue plus (much higher PAR than superactinic from UVL)
KZ Fiji purple
ATI aquablue or KZ new generation 14K
UVL superactinic or ATI blue plus
KZ fiji purple
ATI blue plus

This would give you all the different spectum of light your corals need, and also give you a blue-white look to the tank. If you wanted it whiter, substitute the second fiji purple with another aquablue or KZ 14K (these are both white bulbs).

 

Another good combo is front to back
ATI Blue Plus
UVL Actinic White/Fiji Purple
ATI Blue Plus
GE 6500K/ATI Aquablue Special
ATI Blue Plus
ATI Blue Plus

will produce a 15000k look. Geisemann equivalents will replace the ATI just fine.
This combo will give excellent PAR and color. It is the current recommendation from the Grim Reefer.

 

Thanks. Let me study these suggestions.

For augmentation, part of me is steering to add two 250W MH. Part of me is thinking that overkill and I could just add 2 or 4 more T5's. Your thoughts on that??

Also, right now I have the stock 3-white, 3-actinic that came with the fixture. Time to replace them.

M

 

i like the way your approaching this... very scientific standpoint but experience has told me that you will need more blue than that to make them look like anything more than brown "fuzzy sticks"

 

I get the "more blue". That makes sense. Trying to cover "full spectrum" in the PAR frequencies makes sense as well.

Trying to balance that with MH augmentation. I currently have the 6x54W that we are discussing.

If I go 6x54W plus 2x250W MH is that overkill and will I bleach my corals??? Or should I go 6x54W plus (2 or 4)x54W???

If I did 6x54W and 4x54W, I would certainly be able to put in the range of bulbs to get the blue-white and the full spectrum.....

Just trying to think it through..... appreciate the help.

M

 

Alright..... attempting to learn here.... I took all three thoughts and combined them into a 6x54W plus 4x54W integrated solution. Just trying to come up with options... please critique...

Front to Back

1) ATI Blue Plus
2) ATI Aquablue Special
3) Giesemann Midday 6000
4) KZ fiji purple
5) UVL Aquasun's
6) KZ fiji purple
7) Giesemann Midday 6000
8) ATI Blue Plus
9) UVL Aquasun's
10) ATI Blue Plus

My thought was to keep the "good growth" characteristics of my original solution, look for the common elements of the other two solutions, and increase the high energy blue content.

Thoughts here??? Improving or am I confused????

M

 

Dingo and others,

What do you think of this 6x54W and 4x54W solution versus a 6x54W and 2x250W MH solution???

Obviously, I'd get a different set of T5's if pairing with MH. Also, having trouble finding the spectrum outouts for MH's..... to compare....

M

 

What size tank are we looking at and what corals are you looking to keep? If the tank is 18" front to back then 6 bulbs is good, if it is 24" the 8 is good. If it is no more than 24" deep then you don't need MH.