Lighting and Room Decor

[Tracey]

I am finding my aquarium blue lighting is washing out the pretty yellow chairs in my room. The tank is closed in as much as it can be so I'm not sure what I can do about it without switching the tank to a freshwater planted tank but thought I would ask for suggestions anyway.

 

[ndrwater]

Depending on what kinds of lights you are using, you can potentially change the color of the lights (LED) or change out some bulbs (T5) to something in the whiter spectrum.
Or get new chairs...

 

[OREGONIC]

Screw the chairs keep the tank

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Whiten up the lighting on the tank. The trend now is running tanks super blue but even just a few years ago before LEDs took off crisp white with a hint of blue was the norm.

 

[Tracey]

I am running T5's, mostly blue plus bulbs with coral plus and purple plus, which bulbs would be more white?

 

[PiscesPower]

Please make sure that the lights you choose are what are needed for the health of your corals. Blue spectrum is important for corals.

Sadly, to take care of these precious animals properly we often need to put aside some of our notions of aesthetics, as evidenced by the current eerie pink glow emanating from my cabinet refugium light. Its kind of creepy and I'm sure the neighbors have questions when they see into the room in the evenings.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

Corals will grow just fine under a wide variety of lighting, including white or yellow. Your refugium algae will also grow just fine under white light, if that was something that really bothered you .

From a quick look around on BRS, you could switch out some of the bulbs for ATI AquaBlue Special (12K) or KZ Coral Light (10K) or Giesemann Tropic (6.5K). I don't like the blue look - I tried a few different combinations and I ended up with two Giesemann Tropic and Two Blue+.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

I'm not a expert on T5 by any means and have only been using T5 for less than a year (but have have been doing this whole growing coral thing for a long time...), but just based on the descriptions on the BRS website I organized the bulbs in order: yellow to white to blue to purple. I could be wrong on any of these - anyone feel free to jump in and correct.

Switching out any bulbs you have towards the bottom of this list with bulbs closer to the top of this list will cut down on the blue/purple look and make the tank whiter.

Super Flora
Tropic 6.5K
KZ Coral Light – 10K
AB Special – 12K White
Coral Plus – White with blue, red, green
AB Coral – 15K
AB Azure – 17K
KZ Superblue – 20K
Blue Plus
Actinic Blue
Purple plus / Super purple / fiji purple
Actinic 03 / Super Actinic

 

[Bpb]

I hate the overly blue look as well. You don’t have to have a blue dominated tank for it to be healthy. ESPECIALLY with t5ho. Change your coral+ and purple+ bulbs out with giesemann 6500k tropics and your problem is solved.

The beauty of t5ho bulbs is that any full spectrum bulb will still have that blue dominant phosphor in there. There are just so many yellows, greens, oranges and reds firing as well that the bulb doesn’t LOOK blue, but rest assured, it’s there. You won’t be depriving your tank of the colors it NEEDS by switching to a warmer looking full spectrum bulb.