removing t5 actinic

[kevvin27]

I have a double t5 ho on my 28 gallon. I was thinking about replacing the actinic with another daylight bulb to get a little more growing power out of the light, and getting a blue led for the glowing look. Does this sound like a good idea or is there any problems with this?
Thanks you.

 

[lilduud]

well the actinic will offer just as much "growing power" as the daylight bulb because its the spectrum that corals prefer but if you had enough blue led supplementation i suppose it would work... assuming you got the correct blue leds... id just leave the actinic in there though.... what wattage are the bulbs? or what length?

 

[kevvin27]

It's a 24" Aquatic Life fixture and unfortunately I dont remember what the wattage is right now. I've been reading a bit about it and a lot of people are saying that actinics are mainly just for aesthetics. Apparently corals do use the wavelength provided by actinics but not as much as daylight bulbs and daylight bulbs also provide that wavelength. That's what I've read anyway.

 

[kevvin27]

I think it's 24 watts each bulb so 48 total

 

[lilduud]

what kinda corals are you keeping?

 

[kevvin27]

right now I've just got mushrooms, gsp, polyps, and xenia but I would like to expand on that a bit. I don't think I'll get anything too complicated anytime soon. It'd be nice to get a bta but I don't know about that for a little while.

 

[lilduud]

thats not going to be enough light for an anemone... in fact it may be difficult to expand to any stony corals without upgrading your lights.... soft corals could be ok but i dont think lps would make it.

 

[kevvin27]

Well I don't have a lot of money to spare right now anyway so I am fine with keeping it simple right now and when I want to expand to something like lps I will upgrade to a different lighting system. I just wanted to know if replacing the actinic with a daylight and getting blue led's would be bennificial or cause problems now.

 

[kevvin27]

I have seen lots of people keep a variety of lps under t5 ho's and they have been thriving for over a year

 

[Bifferwine]

Yes, but it's the number of bulbs that matters.

 

[BL1]

You could also try a 50/50 bulb instead of just doing 2 10Ks. I don't think that the LEDs they sell for moonlighting will really be bright enough for you to see if you've got 2 10K bulbs on.

 

[kevvin27]

Do you mean a 50/50 t5 bulb?

 

[BL1]

Yea, like the ATI Aquablue.

 

[kevvin27]

Well I'll be replacing my bulbs in about a month so I will definately give that a try and see how it works. Thanks BL1

 

[bjohanson1234]

I would put a few dollars away each week and save up for the new fixture. Look for a fixture with 4 or 6 bulbs and individual reflectors. They increase light output by about 50% from what I have read.