Discussions on lighting SPS tanks

[gjuarez]

jaja. I know.. These were the good old days.. There is plenty of threads that I can bump but i wont, only the interesting ones. These threads are very informative so it doesnt hurt.

[Mr Cob]

true that.

I personally like 14k MH bulbs the best. XM. I don't even need actinic lighting with them...in fact when I turn the actinic lights off you can barely tell a difference. I use my actinic lighting to increase my viewing time of the tank 2 hours pre and post MH. I run the MH for 6 hours a day and a total of 10hours on the actinics.

[gjuarez]

I really like my tanks to have some sort of actinic supplimentation. Alot of mh bulbs put out the blue light, which is more in the 460nm range. True actinics are 420nm. Until today, I have never had anything come close to VHO actinic. Is there any t5 bulbs out there that can close or perhaps even better than VHO.

[LoneStar]

URI now makes true actinic bulbs for T5 fixtures now.

[brewercm]

My T5 setup is using two true actinics from URI and three actinic whites which are rated about 12k I believe.

[JimD]

Im not a fan of 14k bulbs at all, too monochromatic. Theres nothing like a good 10K with true actinic supplimentation. I have yet to see a single bulb look anywhere close to the 10k/vho combination.. Oh yeah.... IMO.