best light for colors

[tidefanjam]

i know there are as many opinions on lights as there are lights, my question is what is the best lights to really bring out the fluorescent colors of the corals under the actinic lights ? like they look on the retailers pics? just looking for opinions, mine look good under the black box i have but mostly look either yellow or red.

 

[Dree]

I would say the best colors are under Ecotech Radions. But those are usually out of budget for people, so a good alternative would be any of the AI Hydra’s or a Nanobox LED. A lot of retailers take their pictures under T5’s or Halides, but there are plenty that also use LED.

 

[Reefcowboy]

Leds would highight coral colors like no other type of lighting. If you get a fixture that allows for tunning of different intensities and colors, you can basically tune the coral to look as good as you want.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Virtually any led fixture that has a couple of different blue spectrum leds will make corals that are capable of fluorescing look about as good as they can. The fact that you only get yellow and red to fluoresce could be due to your choice in corals or possibly lack of some spectrum in the blue range (but IMHO that is a less likely case).

Some will tell you that you need true UV spectrum below 400nm as well, but I'm very leary of that advise. I had fixture with 390nm leds and over my tank that is full of great fluorescing corals, about the only color that 'popped' was a yellow/green hue. Even 420nm violet doesn't make my tank 'light up' as well as I would like. But run 440nm to 480nm blue leds and my tank looks like the planet Pandora in the movie Avatar! And as I understand it, it's impossible (or very nearly impossible) to get blue to fluoresce from corals. The coral takes in high energy blue light, uses some of the energy to fluoresce so it can't do high energy blue. The closest it can do to the high energy spectrum is green with yellow, orange and red being progressively easier as they require lower and lower energy levels.

My recommendation is to get a fixture that has multiple spectrums in the near UV to cool blue and has each spectrum on a separate channel so you can control each color. I think the least expensive unit out there that fits this need is the Reef Breeders Photon V2+ at $350 for a 16" fixture and the prices go up from there. BTW, the Photon V2 uses both 3 watt and 5 watt Cree as well as 3 watt Osram and Semi LEDs. If there is a better value multichannel led fixture out there, I'm not aware of it. There are quite a few more expensive fixture though.

 

[EW_Fish]

Its not always about how good your light is. It is a number of things that bring out color in corals. Stability, nutrients, & lights.. I've seen amazing corals in many many many different lighting. Cheap leds, High end leds, MH, T5s they all work to a point where you can achieve what you want as far as color goes. I've been told black boxs dont do as well as the high end leds but from pictures after pictures that prove this wrong,

 

[Ron Reefman]

Its not always about how good your light is. It is a number of things that bring out color in corals. Stability, nutrients, & lights.. I've seen amazing corals in many many many different lighting. Cheap leds, High end leds, MH, T5s they all work to a point where you can achieve what you want as far as color goes. I've been told black boxs dont do as well as the high end leds but from pictures after pictures that prove this wrong,

The color of coral in daylight and the colors that corals fluoresce under blue light are quite different. Daylight colors are reflected light and fluorescent colors are made by the corals pigments. Actually taking in energy and fluorescing their own color irrelevant to what color (blue) is being used to light them up. MH can make wonderful daylight colors develop, but they don't do blue spectrum alone so you can see the colors that fluoresce. t5 actinics are better. But nothing shows off fluorescing colors better than blue leds. And like EW_fish said, even most CHEAP led black boxes now have at least 2 spectrum of blue leds and will make coral fluoresce well. But most black box fixtures are 2 channel only and you either have all the blues and violets on, or none. With a 6 or 8 channel system you can 'tune' how much of each spectrum you want. That doesn't necessarily make it 'better', but it makes it more fun to play with!

 

[TankLife86]

Here are some pics I've taken with my phone and I'm using the 2 black boxes on my 125gal... Let me know what yall think?

 

[EW_Fish]

The color of coral in daylight and the colors that corals fluoresce under blue light are quite different. Daylight colors are reflected light and fluorescent colors are made by the corals pigments. Actually taking in energy and fluorescing their own color irrelevant to what color (blue) is being used to light them up. MH can make wonderful daylight colors develop, but they don't do blue spectrum alone so you can see the colors that fluoresce. t5 actinics are better. But nothing shows off fluorescing colors better than blue leds. And like EW_fish said, even most CHEAP led black boxes now have at least 2 spectrum of blue leds and will make coral fluoresce well. But most black box fixtures are 2 channel only and you either have all the blues and violets on, or none. With a 6 or 8 channel system you can 'tune' how much of each spectrum you want. That doesn't necessarily make it 'better', but it makes it more fun to play with!

I ain't argue the fact that 6 channel is a better choice. I was basically trying to say that you can achieve coral color with many different options. As in color up ugly corals. He wants like to make a coral "pop" but if you don't have a stable system you could have radion g4 pros over the tank and still have ugly coral with no color because everything else is off.

 

[tidefanjam]

I have a 32” black box, it does only have two channels, whites and blues, although it does have moonlights as well so I guess really 3 channels .I can see the greens pretty good, and under the whites I can see the blue in my acan so I know it’s there, I think it’s the difficulty in getting blue to fluoresce, which may just be how it is. I am happy with my light, it was a great value and has a timer built in. I would like to have the multiple channels so that I could tune it to how I want it, I’ll start saving

 

[tidefanjam]

Here are some pics I've taken with my phone and I'm using the 2 black boxes on my 125gal... Let me know what yall think?

Looks good, really brings out the purple in the hammer

 

[BoomCorals]

Halide will have the coral growing the best colors. Combine with some actinic T5 and they’ll pop.

 

[Ron Reefman]

Just because a coral is some particular color in daylight does NOT mean that it will also fluoresce that color or even fluoresce at all. Lots of corals don't fluoresce. And I don't think blue will fluoresce at all. Blue is a high energy color (very close to UV) and the coral only has blue spectrum energy to work with. It uses some of the energy to fluoresce so it can only fluoresce colors on lower energy.

 

[ZoWhat]

420nm. Peroid

 

[SteadyC]

Reefbrite blue and T5 actinicts.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2645036

And there’s a video where you can see jfox’s lights. Just posting cause he likes heavy blues and actinicts.

 

[casey012293]

Leds would highight coral colors like no other type of lighting. If you get a fixture that allows for tunning of different intensities and colors, you can basically tune the coral to look as good as you want.

How do you tune to get more reds to show up without the whole tank looking purple?

 

[Homebrewer]

420nm. Peroid

To an extent, this is correct. It’s not about brand of light, it’s about wavelength, more specifically, shorter wavelengths. Look up the definition of biofluorescence and how it works. I’m neither a biologist nor a light specialist, but the answer (for fluorescence anyway) comes down to short wavelengths.

 

[Dkmoo]

To an extent, this is correct. It’s not about brand of light, it’s about wavelength, more specifically, shorter wavelengths. Look up the definition of biofluorescence and how it works. I’m neither a biologist nor a light specialist, but the answer (for fluorescence anyway) comes down to short wavelengths.

+1 this

420nm is where many CFPs activate but not all (mostly the green/cyan) ones are this range, esp within acroporas.

There are many other CFP that activate on other peaks around that frequency and some that activate in the opposite range.

So generally speaking you will want a wide range of LED spectrum on the short end to cover as many different activations as possible from 500nm all the way down to just above UV at around 400.

420 actinic are still the key peak tho, I just wouldn't recommend a narrow band LED only. I've had entire acro colonies that is supposed to flouresce yellow and red that completely green shifted when I only blasted them with 420.