[dagnir]

Im getting closer and closer to setting up a 180g tank with about a 200g prop system. It will be primarily SPS dominated and was wondering on the growth and color advantages of either the EYE's or Ushio 400w halides. Both would be supplimented by VHO actinics. I am under the impression that eye's promote the most growth because of their closeness to true sunlight. But I heard that you get better color and decent growth with the Ushios. If I am going to be supplimenting either one with VHO is there anything that warrants the extra cost of a Ushio over an Iwasaki?

Also the current setup looks like:

3 - Iwasaki 6.5k 400w on PFO ballast
and
3 - URI 03 Actinic 140w on IceCap ballast

All prop tanks would be with same lighting just different #'s of bulbs, and run on the same system.

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Reefland]

I am not aware of any study of lighting which includes coral growth rates or coloration; in fact I am not aware of any study of coral growth rate and coloration for any industry related product.

However as you know, the amount of PAR from the light is what is important and your looking at the right bulbs in that regards. I wouldn't hesitate to put either over a dominated SPS tank and would base my decision on persoanly color preference and on going costs.

The Ushio is going to give a better appearance to "your" eyes and require less actinic supplementation to get a bluer look over the Iwasaki's. However there is the cost difference. The Iwasaki's can make the tank appear just as good when heavily supplemented with actinics and cost a bit less.

For a "commercial" tank, I would go with the Iwasaki's personally.

[Ninong]

Dagnir: "Im getting closer and closer to setting up a 180g tank with about a 200g prop system. It will be primarily SPS dominated and was wondering on the growth and color advantages of either the EYE's or Ushio 400w halides."

Reefland: "I am not aware of any study of lighting which includes coral growth rates or coloration; in fact I am not aware of any study of coral growth rate and coloration for any industry related product."



Atlantis: "My experiment will be quite simple: I have several propagation tanks that are plumbed together. In essence, the water parameters of these tanks will be very similar. I have installed new bulbs over all tanks in April 2001. I have allowed a 2 month break in period for the bulbs. On 5/20/01 I made 2 frags of 7 different SPS corals. I attempted to make each frag of each specific coral as similar as possible in both height and girth. I have placed each frag in a similar spot in 2 tanks. One tank is being lit by a 400 watt, 10,000K Ushio lamp, driven by a PFO HQI ballast. The Other by a 400 watt, 6500K Iwasaki lamp, driven by a standard PFO ballast."

Reefland: "Brian, I really appreciate you trying to make some head way on this issue. I have been following your test religiously. It sometimes is hard to evaluate the results from pictures. I was curious if you have an opinion of which bulb is producing better results in your system? Do you plan on making a change in all your grow out tanks based on this test?"




P.S. -- That was only two years ago. Remember?

[Reefland]

Good golly, is that a photographic memory you have? Obviously I have forgotten all about that and even now that you post it, I can only vaguely remember. Ok, back to the search engine to see if I can find his results.

Well rats, I found a couple of posts but no details. The link Brian had posted is no longer active. Do you remember any of the results Ninong?

Memory is one thing I was not blessed with (along with many other things). Without constant reference, I would forget a lot of stuff including my own name! Hey come to think of it, Scott is my middle name, what is my first name?

[Ninong]

Originally posted by Reefland
Good golly, is that a photographic memory you have?

Yes.

[Reefland]

But do you remember the results of the lighting test or we're they ever complete?

[Ninong]

Yes, I remember as much as he posted but it looks like his website is down and I can't find his tests either.

Don't you remember the pics he kept posting? Most of the frags were about 2" - 3" tall and all of the growth pictures were very similar. There was very little difference between the growth sequence under 6500K compared to under 10,000K. The frags were practically identical initially (they came from the same parent) but the appearance of some of them was slightly different under the different lighting. Which is to be expected.

Remember that Brian was a fan of 400w Ushio 10,000K MH bulbs and was running the test to see if the claims made by some of his friends who used 400w 6500K Iwasaki MH bulbs could be verified. I don't recall him posting more than three times over a period of a few months. IIRC, the results were inconclusive.

Several folks have tried similar experiments and the consensus seems to be that intensity is more important to growth than anything else. However, it's not as simple as it sounds. It is important that the spectrum include lots of 420nm wavelength energy and lots of red wavelength energy around 670nm because those are the peaks of Chlorophyl-a absorption. Chlorophyl-a is the most important pigment but not the only one. Each pigment has its own wavelength preference. Fortunately, the 6500K Iwasaki bulbs do have a nice amount of blue in them even though we poor humans can't see it with all of that green/yellow in there, too. In any case, just about any coral can adapt to a wide range of lighting intensity given sufficient time to adjust. Healthy coral is actually brown, the natural color of the zooxanthellae. Much of that color is a response to UV light and light intensity. But before someone wants to pick apart that line, we would be here all week discussing the various pigments, accessory pigments, MMA's, etc., that have a hand in coral coloration. Then we would have to jump from PAR to PUR (photosynthetically usable radiation) which is a measure of the exact wavelengths usable by the various pigments in each of the animals under consideration.

Dr. Mac is a big fan of 400w Radium 20,000K bulbs but they don't last very long -- 6 or 7 months. Steve Tyree used to mix 10,000K with 20,000K but I think he has moved toward more 20,000K in recent years. But both of those guys are interested in coloration more than anything else because they're in the business of selling colorful frags, not fast growing frags.

Just slap a few 1000w 10,000K AB's with a couple of 1000w 20,000K Radiums over yer tank and you shouldn't have to worry about slow growth. Or coloration. I hope you don't live in San Diego.

[dgasmd]

The way I see it, it all depends on what matters to you. Money, efficiency, and color matter to me, so my response is biased in that regard. This is what I would do:

Main display tank:
Ushio 10K with some actinic. You'll get great growth and great colors too.

Propagation tank:
6500K Iwasaki without actinics.

My reasons are the following:
With the iwasaki you'll get more PAR and so deductively more growth (not necessarily true though). You also get a full expectrum bulb, so all colors are represented, meaning your corals will ahve all the colors they will ever produce. Once you take that coral out and out it underradiums or your main display's lights, you'll see all the colors. It is not that the new lights brought it out, they were there all along. The thing is that those pigments can't flouresce under the iwasaki for your eyes to see them. They are there though and that is what matters.
By having iwasakis under the grow oout tank, you have a cheap bulb that will last you easily 1 1/2 - 2 years (cost efficient). Actinics would add nothing there and would be redundancy of bulbs to replace.
In the main tank, you want to see the beautiful colors of the corals, so the ushio and the actinics would bring those out greatly. They will also grow well under those lights. Ushio will last you a year and the VHO last about 6 months, but since you are not using them for the extra added intensity, it really doesn't matter if you let them go to 12 months.
Just a suggestion,
Alberto