dalight bulbs

eric.battani · Feb 7, 2013

hello to all! i have a question about using energy saving bulbs that are sold almost everywhere. when i build the hood to go over my 29 gallon tank with a 24 inch quad t5 light fixture, i placed 4 (two on each side of the fixture) light sockets to place 19 watt 6500k energy saving bulbs. i thought that this would help with adding more light to the tank for the corals. am i going wrong with using these bulbs? it kinda makes my water look a little yellow but when they are due to come on, i will be at work so when i set down at the end of the day to enjoy my corals its already off. anyone else ever use daylight bulbs to help grow coral in there tank? pros and cons? thanks for taking time and helping me with this problem. eric

ReeferBob · Feb 8, 2013

I don't think this is a good idea. I think these will grow a lot of algae and not help with Corals much if at all. It is just too low a wavelength. 4 T5s should be plenty for that tank as long as they are decent bulbs like ATI and in the correct spectrum for Reef tanks.

fragmatic · Feb 8, 2013

Those are the very bulbs I have over my refugium to make algae grow. So that should be a good hint. I have heard that there are some new "worm" full spectrum bulbs on the shelf that are higher in the K values, If so you want the ones that are strong in the blue frequencies. You will notice that not many of those bulb packages provide the actual K frequency values and even fewer provide a color chart of the output. Look for the ones that do, then favor the blues. Then I see no reason you shouldn't be able to try and see. Then let the rest of us know how it goes.

My thinking is this, there are constantly more choices in these bulbs. We have to keep an open mind because things change, you may find a bulb that works for you and if so it could be useful to the reef keep community to know about it. Such a bulb, when it comes along, will be a choice to use with other combinations of lighting to add color to a tank.

The truth is there is still much about how animals, bacteria, and plants use light we still do not understand. Also, if you point those sockets right or they are "point'able" you could always later decide to put the new PAR lights in them.

Adding PAR lights is something I am seriously considering, myself.

eric.battani · Feb 8, 2013

well i have been using these bulbs over my reef for about four-five months (65k energy saving) and i dont have any algae growing in my tank. Now that being said i have an algae scrubber in my refugium growing algae with the same bulbs to keep it from growing in my display tank lol.
on another note i have had only four blue t5 actinic bulbs in my t5 fixture running along with the four 19 watt daylight energy saving bulbs on each end. and i was even growing corals. now the corals i was growing was mostly zoas but i had some LPS (green favia, frog spawn, candy canes) and all had great color. the favia was a cutting when i got it and the sides were white and bare were it was cut, now its has new growth over the sides and looks healthy. the zoas grew great but the frog spawn is still the same size it was when i bought it four months ago. and i do know that its not a strong enough light to grow SPS such as birds nest. about a month into being in my tank it started to turn brown. (feb 4th) is when i took two of the actinic bulbs and replaced them with two 10k bulbs. and all i can say is WOW! its as if the light is now ''crisp'' lol.
so for now i think i will still keep the energy saving bulbs running on one side and the other side i will keep off. but still run the 2 10k and 2 actinic t5 bulbs and place two birds nest frags on each side to see which one grows better. after all i dont think its hurting anything and might even help add to the light needed to color back up the birds nest. if anyone thinks this will hurt, let me know thanks