Lighting Ideologies

[The0wn4g3]

Preface: I've been out of the hobby since 2011.

I visited an LFS today and was introduced to a new lighting ideology I've never heard before: using a hybrid fixture, run LEDs for sunrise and sunset to achieve color pop, but run T5's for 5 hours during the afternoon.

The idea being that the blue/violet LEDs will provide color during normal viewing hours and the T5's enable maximum coral growth during normal work hours.

For example, he recommended on a 75 gallon aquarium something like a Radion XR30 and 4xT5's. He said he never runs the white LEDs because all they do is cause coral to turn green, and only runs ATI bulbs.

This is a whole new idea to me. So, is this a common idea or what?

 

[Hemmdog]

Yeah, very common. It’s what I do myself. I keep the leds on the entire photoperiod in a blue/purple spectrum, then blue plus and coral plus t5 bulbs for 6 hours at peak.

 

[Auquanut]

It's absolutely not a bad way of looking at lighting. I run just LEDs and get some pretty amazing colors of my SPS. Like anything else with reefing, there's more than one way to skin a cat. If you're into skinning cats.

 

[The0wn4g3]

Yeah, very common. It’s what I do myself. I keep the leds on the entire photoperiod in a blue/purple spectrum, then blue plus and coral plus t5 bulbs for 6 hours at peak.

Thanks for the input. Let me ask you this: why not run T5's and then add blue/purple LED strips? I feel like buy an XR30 or similar and only using a part of the LEDs included is paying for more than required. Why pay for whites when the idea is to depends on the T5's for that?