Actinic's

[asimp43]

Alright, I want to know what your opinions are on actinic lighting. I recently purchased a metal halide only fixture. I am running two 250w 14k bulbs at the present time. I like the look of the actinic lights so I added two 40w coralife actinic 03 lamps (just hanging on either side of the fixture). Without the MH's on these lights look great but when I turn on the MH's it seems to completely over-power the actinic's. I know....I know....I should have bought the fixture that included the pc's or some other bulb to run actinics but I didn't so I have work with what I got.

My question is:

1st...Do these lights actually benefit the corals or are they just for aesthetics?

2nd...If they are beneficial do you think that my setup is sufficient or should I go with something like the T-5's or just change to the 20k's?

[Ninong]

1st...Do these lights actually benefit the corals or are they just for aesthetics?

They're beneficial.

2nd...If they are beneficial do you think that my setup is sufficient...

Sufficient for what? Do you keep mostly soft corals or mostly SPS? How deep is your water column?

If your tank is 30" tall, then your setup is inadequate. If your tank is 20" tall, then it's quite adequate. Of course, that assumes that you're keeping a mixed reef. If you're keeping mostly softies, then your setup is sufficient even if the tank is 30" tall.

Your question can't be answered without knowing what you plan to keep and the height of your water column.

...or should I go with something like the T-5's or just change to the 20k's?

T5's would give you more intensity. Are you asking about changing your present 250w 14,000K lamps to 20,000K lamps? If so, what brand of 14,000K lamps are you running now and what brand of 20,000K lamps are you planning on switching to? Also, what ballast are you running? That's the only way to answer your question. I'm assuming you want to know if the 20,000K's will provide more PAR than the 14,000K's. If they both happen to be included in Dr. Sanjay Joshi's tests, then we can compare them if we know the brand of lamps and the ballast model. We would also need to know if your metal halide lamps are SE or DE.

Most 14,000K lamps are notoriously low in PAR. Some 20,000K lamps are better and some are not. That's assuming you're interested in useful PAR and not just apparent coloration. Some 14,000K lamps are actually bluer than some 20,000K lamps. And some 20,000K lamps are more intense (more PAR) than some 14,000K lamps. Others are not.

Maximum PAR would be achieved by switching from 14,000K metal halides to 10,000K halides and by switching the actinics from NO to either VHO or HO T5's. None of that may be necessary in your particular case, depending on what you plan to keep.

[asimp43]

Sorry about the left out info....Right now I have one gorgonia, a couple of zoo colonies, two tree corals, and green star polyps but I do intend to add to this. I want to start adding some LPS and maybe a few SPS.

My tank is a 75 so it's 18" tall and my lights are about 12" off the water. I'm running the Coralife 14K's at the present time. The ballast is an Aquamedic Ocean (electronic).

My reason for concern was there was not enough visible blue coloring in my tank when the halides were on. The halide lamps seemed to completely drown out the actinic lamps. I know that the deeper blue may not always be visible to us even though the corals can tell the difference. Just wanted to know what someone elses thoughts were.

As for changing to the 20K's. I was wanting to know if this would be enough of the blue spectrum alone or would I be better off upgrading my NO actinics to something else?

Also we have discussed the possiblity of changing from a 75g to a 90g or even the 110 high. That's why I went ahead and purchased the 250watt instead of the 150's

[Ninong]

As I said above, if your tank is 20" or less tall, then your present lighting arrangement is "quite adequate." However, I understand your desire to improve things and to make the appearance pleasing to your taste.

I forgot to ask if your lighting fixture takes double-ended or mogul base lamps??? I was trying to compare the metal halide lamps you have now with what you might choose as replacements. It doesn't matter much as far as what you have now because apparently Dr. Sanjay Joshi has not tested 250w Coralife 14,000K metal halide lamps anyway; but I would need to know that in order to make a recommendation of a nice 250w 20,000K replacement lamp. It's also possible that the Coralife lamps are being branded under more than one brand name and Sanjay has listed them under a different brand. I compared the Radium 250w 20,000K lamp against the BLV, XM and A-B 250w 20,000K lamps and the Radium blows them away. It's more than double the PAR of the XM or BLV and nearly double the PAR of the A-B.

In general, I tend to prefer 20,000K metal halide lamps over 14,000K metal halide lamps because the color is usually better and the PAR is almost always better, even double in some cases. For example, the 250w Radium 20,000K mogul base lamps produce more than double the PAR of some of the 14,000K lamps. And the Radium 250w 20,000K lamps are slightly bluer in appearance than the Radium 400w 20,000K lamps.

If your fixture takes mogul base lamps, then I would recommend the Radium 20,000K's. Radium doesn't make the 250w size in DE, just SE.

As far as your fluorescent actinics are concerned, they will be "drowned out" by the metal halides even if you switch them to HO T5's. However, the HO T5's would be considerably more intense than the NO lamps you have now. You might be able to notice a difference with all of the lights on. You will definitely notice a difference between your NO actinics and HO T-5 actinics with just actinics on, no halides.

So, if your fixture takes mogul base lamps, I strong recomment the 250w Radium 20,000K. If it takes DE lamps, then we have to start over again with the knowledge that a mogul base 250w Radium 20,000K is twice as good. So let me know.

In conclusion, your present setup is adequate for your present tank but the intensity of 14,000K lamps leaves a lot of room for improvement. For whatever reason, none of the 14,000K lamps in the various brands seems to put out much PAR. Don't forget that the manufacturers play games with how they assign Kelvin numbers to their metal halide lamps. They just ask their marketing department to advise them on what numbers are sexy this year. In many cases the numbers mean very little. Iwasaki's 50,000K lamp is a good example. It's a nice little lamp but where did that Kelvin number come from???

[asimp43]

I should have mentioned which bulb they were too....I'm using the DE bulb.

[Ninong]

I should have mentioned which bulb they were too....I'm using the DE bulb.

Radium makes a very nice 150w 20,000K HQI DE lamp but their 250w and larger sizes only come in mogul base.

I guess that means the A-B 250w 20,000K HQI DE lamp would be the best of the 250w 20,000K HQI DE lamps as far as I can tell from Sanjay's tests. It should give you about 20%-30% more PAR than most 250w 14,000K HQI DE lamps but not nearly as much as Radium's mogul base 250w 20,000K lamp.

I don't remember seeing any 250w 20,000K lamps except for Radium's in person. I ran both Ushio/BLV and A-B 250w 10,000K HQI DE lamps and I liked both of those but I think I probably liked the Ushio/BLV's a little better than the A-B's. I was running an Aqua-Medic fixture, so it came with A-B lamps but I switched to Ushio/BLV later on.

If you want a bluer appearance, then go with the 20,000K lamps. The 10,000K lamps would give much, much more PAR but the appearance would not be nearly as blue.

For a tank the size of yours (meaning front-to-back dimension this time), you could probably lower your fixture to 8-9" above the surface and still get adequate light spread. When you get around to trying SPS, place them in the top one-third of the rock structure.

[Ninong]

I'm running the Coralife 14K's at the present time.

Where did you get the 250w Coralife 14,000K HQI DE lamps? I have been googling like crazy and I can't find them anywhere. I was just trying to figure out if they were branded under more than one name so that I could see if there was any test data on them.

[asimp43]

I purchased these from my LFS...not sure who there supplier is.

[Ninong]

Oceanic distributes Coralife lighting products to LFS -- probably the same ones that carry their tanks. I'm not sure who else distributes them. I just found it strange that nobody shows the 250w size in the 14,000K. I thought maybe it had a different brand on it. Maybe they just discontinued it in favor of their 20,000K? I found Coralife 150w 14,000K HQI DE lamps and Coralife 250w lamps in both 10,000K and 20,000K HQI DE but no 14,000K. Considering that I checked Oceanic plus half a dozen major online vendors and none of them show it, I suspect it may have been discontinued.

[Ninong]

Check out Sanjay's test results to compare various brands with various different ballasts. Be sure to read his FAQ section first.

Sanjay has a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He's a professor at Penn State.

[asimp43]

I just did some looking into it myself....I only found one listing for a 250w DE bulb in 14K. Energysavers list one. I know that energysavers is listed on the Box that my Coralife Actinic 03 bulbs came in. I think these are who actually makes them. I just looked on Oceanics website and they don't show the 14K anymore, only the 10 and 20K. Are you looking to purchase or just want to find the stats for this bulb....I'll keep looking.

[Ninong]

The only reason I was looking was so that I could tell you how much the PAR would increase if you switched from 14,000K to 20,000K. To do that, I needed to know exactly what you have now and what you might switch to, which is why I needed to know if we were talking about SE or DE.

Sometimes you can even find spectral distribution charts online, which will give you a pretty good idea of exactly where the PAR is and a general idea of the appearance.

[asimp43]

Found two places that have them.....strictlypetsupplies.com and onlinediscounts.com..(neither of which list the specs)..but I think that you are correct in saying that it appears that this may be a discontinued item.

I have run into this already with coralife....they are discontinuing their Flourescent Magtinics which is the actinic tube with a built in reflector. I have the ones that I am running now and one more set. But my LFS says that they can get no more. Not sure about the HQI's haven't asked just put the new bulbs in recently so wasn't really concerned but now that you mention it I guess I'll be changing brands or at least kelvin ratings.