T5 Lighting Schemes

[rickynichols]

Hello,

I have a 4 x 54w t5 fixture on a 55 gallon aquarium. I have some zoanthids, mushrooms, blastomussa, and will be adding a few fish. I currently have 2 - 10k and 2 - 450nm "actinic" bulbs. The tank is very bright and I would prefer a bluer look, but I don't want to take away all the light the coral needs to survive.

Can anyone give me a good bulb scheme to promote blue colors and keep coral healthy and growing?

There are a lot of threads out there on this but they mostly are out dated due to the newer t5 bulbs or are for 6-8 bulb fixtures.

Thanks in advance!

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

Before I upgraded to a 6bulb+2Led tube fixture, I had a 4x54W 48". I replaced the cheapie bulbs with ATI bulbs. 2x aquablue special bulbs and 2x blue plus bulbs. Night and day difference. Overall, I was happy but I wondered if replacing one of the blue plus bulbs with a true actinic bulb would have looked a little better.

[rickynichols]

Was that enough to keep coral alive? My LFS said I need a 10k bulb to keep coral alive. Will the 2x aquablue be enough? Do you have any pics of your old tank lighting?

Thanks for the input!

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

At the time, I had a few small colonies of zoanthids, palythoas, Xenia, 3 heads of frogspawn, a hammer coral, 1 sps Frag (stylophora) and some shrooms. Everything did well under those bulbs.
My current bulbs don't include 10k either. Ill get back to you on those pics. Ill try to dig them up when I get off work.

[rickynichols]

Thanks for the info,

Someone else suggested 2 x ati aquablue, 1 x ati blue +, 1 x uvl sa. So I may go with that since you seemed to think an actinic would help.

[Original Fin]

You could always go all 10k on the t5s, and add blue LED strips in place of actinics, although that might be a bit of overkill for softies only.
The 3w Cree XPE royal blues are simply amazing. If you bought a ready made strip, try to find one that uses those specific LEDs. You could make your own strips fairly easily and inexpensively too.
That would be very similar to what Fomocotech has done, except the higher wattage Cree RBs with a dedicated driver just pack more flouresceing power/punch than the LED tubes are capable of.

A common complaint about LEDs is that the whites kind of wash out colors when used by themselves, (comparing to 10k T5s or MHs) but it's the blues that really shine...haha.

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

Do you have any pics of your old tank lighting?

Here's a shot with the 2x 10k and 2x actinic


And here's a shot with 2x aquablue special and 2x blue plus

[rickynichols]

Thanks for the pics, I like the blue look much better. My tank looks like yours before the bulb change.

Is yours a 55 gallon?

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

75 gallon.

[Original Fin]

The Grim Reefer suggested the following ATI bulbs for my tank in this order from rear to front (55 mixed, mostly softy)

Purple +
Blue+
Aquablue
Blue+

[FoMoCo Master Tech]

If you really like the blue look, I've heard of people running only blue+ bulbs.
Not sure how much growth you could expect though.

[rickynichols]

Thanks for all the help guys