Pink T5 bulbs

[masonicman]

Does anyone use the Plant Grow (Pink) T5 bulb on their tank? I heard that they help with coral growth and the look it puts off in the tank is pretty good to.

[wshfulthkn]

I know I use the pink in my FW planted tank. I would think there is a spectrum issue (~6700K) considering the MH at ~10K. I am interested in the answers and opinions of others.

[Michael]

i wouldnt myself, reef white and blue are what i use, i wouldnt consider a pink personally, i dont think it would look right or help corals to grow, i may be wrong, but dont think so

[WaterKeeper]

Are we talking about warm white (around 2500-3000K) or true Grow lights (multispectrum made for house plants)? If the lattter, they are OK but using a blend of daylight or above (6000-10,000 K) tubes and true actinic supplements is a much better choice. The Grow lights, for house plants, assume that the light will travel through the air but they lose photosynthetic intensity rapidly when used to illuminate underwater objects. The warm white tubes are about worthless for the aquarium unless it is fish only.

[nikon187]

I use a pink bulb but its the aquasun by UVL. Its a 10000K with alot a red in it which brings out all the reds in my tank. Another one would be the 75/25 by UVL (14000K)

[mckostya]

i use 10000K pink bulb together with my actinic. it looks very reddish/purplish/pinkish kinda.
I have noticed that my red mushroom corals look much much better with it. they stand out right away.

[masonicman]

Yes nikon187.

I was at a LFS and they had two T5 fixtures on two different tanks. I believe they were Nova extreme pros. The first fixture had 2 days, 2 actinic and 2 pink bulbs. The second fixture had 3 days and 3 actinics. The first tank..... WOW you could see ALOT more of the red in the coral, fish and also the coralline look beautiful. The second tank..... you could see a big difference with the reds in the tank. I mean the tanks were not stock exactly the same but close enough to see the big difference. I'm going to look in to this further.

[WaterKeeper]

It is always a trade off. What is best for viewing may not be the greatest for the coral in the tank. The symbiotic algae don't "see" color the same as we do. That is what using PAR is all about. When one takes a photo the light meter is weighted to measure in the yellow/green portion of the spectrum about 550 nm. That is where the human eye has the most response. A PAR meter measures over a broader range and includes wavelengths that NM organisms respond but our own eyes tend to ignore. Using a battery of different K value tubes can please both us and the corals we keep.

[masonicman]

Just want to post a reply after about 2 weeks of running my new 65W pink Plant Lux Spectrum bulbs. I just want to report that I have not seen any increasein algea. I am seeing extensive coral grow and reaction to the light. Everything that is red in my tank... You can see more red it now. I run them for 2 hours as part of the my sun set cycle and I am very happy with these results. Kodos to the LFS..........

[WaterKeeper]

That's Great Masonic. The tricky part of lighting a tank is doing it so the corals are happy and so are we. Using warm colors is good for viewing yellow though red while the blue hued tubes tend to add florescence to the green through blue colored shades. As long as things do well then using what is pleasing to our eyes is always an added treat.