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ffc3 
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 Topic: Ture Actinic 03
Posted: September 20 2003 at 9:37pm |
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I have some actinic bulbs (two Coralife and two cheap JEBO). The blues are very different from each other and neither of them say they are the true actinic 03 lights. How important is it to use true actinics? Should I toss the actinics I have and spend some money and purchase true actinics? My white bulbs are 10000k and are the same brands but the lights are similar relative to the blue.
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: September 21 2003 at 7:29am |
I'm running several power compacts over my tank right now. I just recently removed my actinic (which is a verb referring to their effect, not a noun refering to their color) bulbs and replaced them with blue bulbs. I bought my bulbs from Scroll (Thanks!) and they are awesome. I may be losing some of my actinic benefits, but the color is much better and brighter.
So for me, the actinic lighting wasn't nearly as nice as my blue lights.
Adam
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: September 21 2003 at 4:20pm |
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For NO Flourescent, Blue Moon's are the bomb, but I don't know if they are made for VHO or PC.
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mdawson8931
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Posted: September 21 2003 at 5:55pm |
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I'm using 2 13watt blue pc's along with 2 175mh's. They dont look bad at all.
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Mike
Layton, Ut.
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jfinch
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Posted: September 21 2003 at 9:00pm |
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Atinic usually refers to light in the 420 nm range. This is in the blue to violet spectrum. This is the light that causes greens/yellows to "glow" in our corals. I've had "blue" atinics (36 watt JALO) that were just that... blue. They did very little to enhance the flouresence of my coral. For this reason, I switched to VHO. IMO, if your after "atinic" to make your coral glow, flourecent lights (either VHO or NO) are the way to go. But if you like the blue shade that "blue" lights add to the tank then use "blue" lights. Let your eye's decide.
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ffc3
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Posted: September 21 2003 at 9:14pm |
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My main concern is what is best for corals. I saw on a different forum that true actinic 03 has the correct light and others labeled just "actinic" are just blue lights that don't benefit corals much. The actinics I have make the corals fluoresce but I just want to make sure they are not missing any blue that they need.
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jfinch
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Posted: September 21 2003 at 9:34pm |
ffc3, you're of course right. But getting a concensus on what lighting is best will be near to impossible (even among the experts). For example, if you follow the advice of Eric Borneman atinic doesn't matter at all. It's all about the amount of light in the PAR range (photosynthesis range) and 420 nm is a very poor performer in that area.
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: September 22 2003 at 7:15am |
I agree with Jon, he said that well. There is certainly a difference between best light for corals, and best light for human eyes. Hmmm, which light would you rather have. Tough question.
Adam
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SSpargur
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Posted: September 22 2003 at 8:20am |
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personally I want what's best for my tank inhabitants. If they're happy, I'm happy.
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Sean Spargur
West Valley, UT
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Mark Peterson
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Posted: September 22 2003 at 11:05am |
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Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the actinic effect at the 420 nm range that was determined years ago to be best for coral that come from the depths below, say, 15 ft.?
When I had a shallow 8"x3'x3'cuttings tank lighted only by 2- 30 Watt Blue Moon T10 lamps, all the coral, soft and stony grew well. There was no calcium nor kalkwasser reactor but did use Kold-Steril water and tap water and Aragamilk.
I also attribute some of that good growth to the surge device which not only gave strong wavelike movement but ample circulation to a very shallow tank.
Well, I took it down last year and sold the setup without taking any pics, but the first chance I get I'm going to replicate it, but not quite so shallow this time. The color was beautiful to my eyes and over the long term seemed good for the coral too.
Edited by Mark Peterson
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Adam Blundell
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Posted: September 22 2003 at 11:27am |
Very difficult for me to answer, I'm torn between all sides of this arguement. Sometimes I want to agree with Mark's number of 420nm. But there are times I would lean towards the 480-490 theory. And yet still, look how many of our corals grow in the top 6 inches of the water column. It has certainly been proven that white light or even yellow light (like from metal halides) provides the best light. The other side I lean towards is the theory that we are adding certain lights because we like the way the corals and tank looks, regardless of how they look in the wild (like red cardinal fish in reef tanks).
Adam
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imaexpat2
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Posted: September 23 2003 at 8:53pm |
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I am with Mark, for NO's...Blue Moons are the bomb! I can only find them in 48 inch NO max! If anybody knows of a source for larger ones please enlighten me. I have been using them for about 2 months and they are great.
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300 gal. Frag System
300 gal. Live Rock Vat
240 gal. SPS/Clam Reef Tank
135 gal. SPS/Clam Reef Tank
75 gal. Softies only Tank
65 gal. LPS/Softies
24 gal. SPS/Softies Nano Reef
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