Best lights for coral growth

[edemeterjr]

I have a 75 gallon sps tank. Not looking for great color on corals right now but great growth. What is the best lights and balast for this?
Thanks

[karsseboom]

10,000k gives the best growth...and i would do 2 250 watt mh over the 75 gallon. the brand is up to you.

[nanojg]

6500k Iwasaki will grow some coral

[nikonosis]

Originally Posted by karsseboom

10,000k gives the best growth...and i would do 2 250 watt mh over the 75 gallon. the brand is up to you.

How do you know 10,000k is the best or that halides are the best? Is that an opinion or a fact?

[nanojg]

It is not just the bulb and ballast, the reflector plays a major role as well. The lumenbright reflectors seem to be the best for mhs.

Id say it would be hard to beat a 250w 6500k iwasaki on an hqi ballast in a lumen bright reflector.

[goofball310]

6500k halides, plasma lighting, and sun liighting are suppose to give the best growth.plasma lighting is suppose to be the closest in color in comparison to the sun. a lot of online vendors will grow their frags under 6500k or 10k halides and switch to 20k to color them up for resale. i can't remember the vendor but they even had a video of it on youtube.

here is a sun lit tank:

[jeffberg]

I have tried alot of bulbs and IMO the 14K aquaconnect will get you excellent growth and good color. I use 250 and 400 SE aquaconnect bulbs on my tank; they are a little hard on the wallet but I feel I'm getting good results for what I paid. I have no actinic supplementation and still get good color; not as good as actinic or 20k radium. The statements above are accurate you can do a lot with lighting and camera lenses; just my 2 cents.

[rtparty]

Best light for corals: The Sun

Most practical light: Not the sun unless you have huge open windows or solar tubes. For the majority of us it will be LED, T5, or MH. There is not a single test that will prove that one is better than the other.

Best growth: Water quality and flow

All three MUST go hand in hand.

[Gtt1988]

its just not that simple. First growth of corals come from 75% photosynthesis 25% zooplankton.As long as you whip down your fixtures glass weekly to prevent salt creep. Change bulbs when needed( t-5 or mh) and keep bulbs faned. parameters in check. youll have great growth

[Haplochromine]

Usually, the bluer (higher Kelvin or K value) you go, the less PAR or useable light for the corals. It depends a lot on the reflector, ballast and bulb, but in general...

6500K looks often quite yellow and not to many people's tastes for a coral aquarium. This is the standard for freshwater planted aquariums. These bulbs usually have quite high PAR.

10 000K is more of a white/yellowish light and is generally agreed that 10K bulbs give some of the highest useable light compared to more blue (14K, 20K) metal halide bulbs, but it is often supplemented by actinic fluorescent bulbs to give it that more blue colour.

14 000K is usually in the midrange of blue and can be supplemented by actinics or not. It's not the bluest, but the PAR is still relatively high, higher than 20K but lower than 10K.

20 000K is definitely some of the highest kelvin values and are the bluest. Their PAR usually suffers from this and can be quite a bit lower than lower kelvin values.


In general, if you're only looking for growth, 10K will have the highest PAR. However, it also depends on the wattage of the bulb as 2 250W metal halides on a 75 gallon will definitely be quite a bit of light and you will find any of these colour spectrums will give you quite a bit of growth.

[goofball310]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op559oMrJrg

[nctinter]

goofball I'm kinda digging the look of the sunlit tank. Is that tank that is pictured lit by solar tubes?

[ali lilikoi]

I have been using a 4x 65 watts T5 with ati blue and purple and 250 watt radium mh 20k with ice cap ballast all in timers. Had luck with growing LPS and SPS. And the flow and supplements has a lot play in growing them too. Good luck mahalo.

[goofball310]

Originally Posted by nctinter

goofball I'm kinda digging the look of the sunlit tank. Is that tank that is pictured lit by solar tubes?

The tank belongs to amfynn and can be seen here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...497916&page=44

He would be the best to answer any questions that you may have regarding his tank.

[grigsy]

I have used Iwasaki 250 watt 6500K bulbs and would recommend them as a great choice for "growth".

However, they will cast a yellowish look to your tank when used alone.

They will though look more balanced if you suppliment them with two Super Actinic VHO T12 bulbs.

[karsseboom]

Originally Posted by nikonosis

How do you know 10,000k is the best or that halides are the best? Is that an opinion or a fact?

fact: the closer to the color of sun the better the growth.....the bluer the light the better color pop. mh i would say to be the best proven method for growing sps wouldnt you think? is there any more proven way? led proven? no..

[rtparty]

Originally Posted by karsseboom

fact: the closer to the color of sun the better the growth.....the bluer the light the better color pop. mh i would say to be the best proven method for growing sps wouldnt you think? is there any more proven way? led proven? no..

The suns color at what depth? 5 feet? 10 feet? 50 feet?

Majority of the world's reefs are located in the 30-90 feet range. Therefore blue is pretty much the only wavelength they are receiving.

Some of the shallow reefs for sure get smacked with the whole spectrum but they are small overall.

I remember seeing a study on a bunch of bulbs and the 10k bulb had more blue in it then most 14-20k bulbs. It just happens to have more reds and yellows to counteract the blue.

Blue just fluoresces colors better than red and yellow. Hence why we tend to run them a lot more in this hobby.

[goofball310]

There was a comparison back in the early 2000's between the different kelvin rating and coral growth. Of the kelvin ratings, the Iwasaki 6500k had the best coral growth of all the halides that they had tested. They also stated that is was not the most visually appealling but was the "BEST" for coral growth.

Maybe someone can tune in and provide a link to the article that I am speaking of.

[Acrotrdco]

I think it really boils down to the question, do you want to keep:

- fastest growing corals; or
- fast growing and colorful corals

[goofball310]

I think he already answered that in his opening statement and everyone took it upon themselves to interject what kelvin color they prefer.

Originally Posted by edemeterjr

Not looking for great color on corals right now but great growth.
Thanks

[SpartaReef]

Not sure if it has been asked or answered yet.... But, what difference does having the red and green LEDs make in addition to the whites and blues?

[jerry26]

probably for a full spectrum effect.

it has been noticed that reds appear to possibly be better than the blues for photosynthesis. but it requires red and far-red where blue just requires blue. more and more studies have been done on this and the reds are prevailing as the best for growth. in the case of growth a mix a various reds and blues is better than blue/white. but reds ugly.

[bvoss]

XM 10Ks put out incredible PAR. Check out Sanjay's research. They were the best SPS growth bulb I ever used.

[Violator]

I'm a rookie to reef tanks and I'm very confused as what kind of lightning to use. I have the orbits marine led 24"-36" on a foot print of 36x26x18. I have zoos , frogspawn , star polyps and a Duncan. Will this light do the tick or do I need an upgrade.

[Jone]

Ati brand name fixture,,t5 alllllllll the waaaaayyyyyyyyy