Actinic or not Actinic??

airbrnebkr

airbrnebkr

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Apr 19, 2004
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I was at my LFS the other day and was telling him that, over my 55 gallon reef, I have 2-150w MH lights, 2-65w 50/50 PC's and 2-35w actinic PC's. He said when I change out my bulbs I should make the all the PC's true actinics and just leave the MH lights for white light. He said I would get better color out of my tank this way. I want to make sure my corals have enough light. Will having less white light cause any problems or should I make the switch.
Thanks,
Doug
 
Actinics were originally developed to run at the proper spectrum for the zooxanthellae tp perform photosynthesis back before the higher ºK MH bulbs were developed. I believe actinics are actually the most useful light for corals- it is the light that penetrates the deepest. Plus they bring out some beautiful colors.

Whether or not you need more of them would depend on the color of your MH bulbs- do you know what ºK you have?
If you have 10K bulbs I'd say use more actnincs- if you have 20K then not so much.

I'd think you would like the look of a bit more actinic- unless you are running 20K's and already have it in there.
 
I have only been using halides for a few months but have learned a bit in the process. One thing I learned was that high color temperature lamps (20000 K) have lower photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) values, and actually support less growth than the 10000 K or 14000 K. Anecdotally, the best growth (correlated with the highest measured PAR) comes with Iwasaki 6500 k lamps. Joe Burger has a fairly exhaustive analysis at his website here. Worse yet, when I looked through Sanjay Joshi's series of analyses of various bulbs at Advanced Aquarist, I was shocked to find that the manufacturer's color temp rating has only a slight correlation with the lamp's actual spectrum.

Anyway, I agree with Toni that actinic light is good for growth, and enhances the appearance of corals. My opinion would be that the mix you have now is fine, that you probably wouldn't see a very large change in terms of coral growth or health if you went all actinic. So, if you think more blue would look good, go for it. If not, then keep it as it is.

I want to emphasize, though, that I am still rather low on the learning curve.
 
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