T5 bulb choice help
 

I am switching my lights to t5, it will a four bulb fixture. I want a bulb combination that will good growth and colour ( more important), I plan on kepping softies and lps, and maybe 1 or 2 sps.

I'd recommend 2 ATI Blue Plus, 1 Aquablue Special, and 1 KZ fiji purple.

If you don't have access to ATI bulbs, 2 Aquascience 22K and 1 Aquascience 15K would work in place of the ATI bulbs.

I haven't used the new superblues from KZ yet, but you could go with all KZ bulbs too by using 2 KZ 14K new gen coral lights, 1 KZ fiji purple, and 1 KZ superblue.

All these bulb combos should result in a ~14 K colour temp which should give your tank and corals a nice colour with a decent amount of PAR.

+1 Oceanic has all the bulbs you need.

it is this fixture

http://www.jlaquatics.com/product/sl...C+4+x+24W.html

ati or aqua science is the way to go but with only four bulbs i would be very careful especially with soft corals going with to much of just blue light like the blue plus or the 22,000k.

In a 4 bulb set up i would go with the following

ati blue plus or aqua science 22,000k x 2

ati aqua blue or aqua science 15,000k x1

ulv actinic white or aqua science 17,500k x 1

tons of PAR realistic color and growth. A tank with to much blue doesnt allow the corals to expand fully or look realistic.

I would go with three Korraline Zuct bulbs and one geisemann

something like this front to back,
KZ 10, 000 k
KZ fiji Purple
KZ koralight
Geismann Actinic +

I've seen all of these bulbs in action, and there is no bulb better than the KZ's
You can get 'em from J+L, relatively inexpensive too. :-) Good luck!

Bump for any agreements with the posts of any new suggestions
+ advice on where to get bulbs

I would get them at J+L, Or Oceanic Corals. If you haven't been there yet, then go to oceanic, they have lots of frags. Including all of mine, and they tend to beat J+L's prices on SOME things, worth a shot anyways! good luck!!

I was talking with Kevin from Red Coral in Calgary the other day, for my tank (96"L x 22"W x 18"D) with 2 - 48" 4 bulb fixture's per side and primarily LPS & Softies he suggested the following per side:

2 - ATI Aqua Blue Special
2 - 10,000K (KZ or Geisman)
2 - 15,000K (KZ or Geisman)
2 - Fiji Purple

Go
 

I like that combo
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We would be happy to match anyones prices on the bulbs should you need the KZ or ATI brand! Thanks for the props guys.

that is extremely white

to the original poster, its up to you. imo even a 6 bulb doesn't have enough bulbs for a good enough bulb choice

if i were you i would for sure run 2 22,000k bulbs and the probably 2 14,000k bulbs. no point looking into bulbs specifically for certain colors.

i run from front to back.

kz new gen coral light 15k
kz old gen coral light 10k
giess actinic plus (thinking of switching to kz old gen coral light.)
kz new gen coral light

any other ideas or a kz equivalent to 2 ATI Blue Plus, 1 Aquablue Special, and 1 KZ fiji purple

and how will a clam do under this combo???

Bump

2 - KZ superblue
2 - 10,000K (KZ or Geisman)
2 - 15,000K (KZ or Geisman)
2 - Fiji Purpl
I am not sure how we came up with the ATI AB special as they are 12k
Lorenz0 you are correct it would be white. I would go with the superblues.
Kevin

If you are looking for 36" T5 bulbs to see how different combos look like in color, you can have mine for $5 each or all 6 bulbs for $20.

i keep a lot of SPS under T5's
I have 6 one year old T5 bulbs:

2 x pure actinic Giesemann (normal actinic 20k)
2 x aquablue plus Giesemann (white 14k)
1 x Fiji purple KZ (purple?)
1 x actinic plus Giesemann ("super mega" blue, makes color "pop")

i have one blue maxima clam deep on the bottom doing just fine.

I'm really confused by this comment, your saying that to much blue light is bad for a coral for what reason? You're bulb choice is very blue as it is but corals not "expanding fully" under actinics is incorrect. I'm unclear as to the dynamics of photosynthesis and the use of light energy but I do know that blue light has a shorter wave length and higher frequency than other colors which would indicate it has more energy to facilitate dinoflaggeletic photosynthesis.

The limiting factor you run into is that with just 4 bulbs you can't fine tune your fixture like an 8 bulber. With my 8 bulb I run 5 actinic plus and 3 daylight's (All being giessmann), the tank is a 6 foot 170g with a 4 foot fixture. Currently running a heavily stocked very mixed system including 60 different zoa colonies and I couldn't ask for better color. As for "Non Realistic" when I just have actinics on the color in the tank is spectacular so I would readily take "Non Realistic" over "Blah and colorless".
Levi

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