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Old 03-14-2010, 08:56 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by chris88 View Post
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'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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