Looking for Better look from T5 on Giesmann Aurora

[fishnugget1]

Currently have hybrid Aurora with 2 Blue Plus & 2 Coral plus. Look is too white. Hanging 8" above water. What could I switch lamps to get more windex look? And get good growth. Giesmann has me at 100 % on all LED channels according to their SPS schedule.

Should I use Giesmann bulbs? Fixture came with 2 Atinic blue & 2 Aqua Blue Coral that flickered and would not stay on. I purchase my current ATI bulbs based on BRS recommendations. However, the look is too white. I have my LED whites at 70% to give better par. However, I do not like the look. I also am thinking of raising fixture to 10" to get better side to side spread but that would give up par.

Any recomendations on bulbs etc?

 

[AdamNC]

This may help

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/which-ati-bulb-combination-should-i-choose.205103/

 

[Cyricdark]

Currently have hybrid Aurora with 2 Blue Plus & 2 Coral plus. Look is too white. Hanging 8" above water. What could I switch lamps to get more windex look? And get good growth. Giesmann has me at 100 % on all LED channels according to their SPS schedule.

Should I use Giesmann bulbs? Fixture came with 2 Atinic blue & 2 Aqua Blue Coral that flickered and would not stay on. I purchase my current ATI bulbs based on BRS recommendations. However, the look is too white. I have my LED whites at 70% to give better par. However, I do not like the look. I also am thinking of raising fixture to 10" to get better side to side spread but that would give up par.

Any recomendations on bulbs etc?

Keeping your LEDs white channel at 70% for the par is your whole problem I think I keep my LED lights at 12% on the white Channel. basically what you're trying to do is crank the lights up for your par and then compensate with the t5s when the right answer is just to find some way to have more blue and less white in your LEDs. Either lower the lights or add more LEDs or add a blue LED strip of some kind.

 

[fishnugget1]

Are you familiar with my fixture? My t-5 are on 12 hours. LEDS on about 7. Can't add more leds. If i lower my white led my par goes down alot. I thought that maybe i could go down a little if I found a blue T-5 combo

 

[Dolelo96]

I wanted the blue look. I used 2 Giesemann Actinic Blue & 2 Giesemann Super Actinic. T5’s 100%, LEDS, Royal & Marine Blue ramp up to 80% and never used the white channel. My tank is only 22 inches deep. Never had a problem with my SPS. Watch this video about Jason Fox’s coral farm. Explains a lot of how corals use light.


Couldn’t find any good shots that showed the true color.

 

[Cyricdark]

Are you familiar with my fixture? My t-5 are on 12 hours. LEDS on about 7. Can't add more leds. If i lower my white led my par goes down alot. I thought that maybe i could go down a little if I found a blue T-5 combo

Not really just the specs. You don't give us the size of your fixture that I saw so I don't really know exact specs on yours since they make them anywhere from two foot to six foot long. But regardless of the fixture size each LED Puck is 85 Watts it says it consists of five watt LEDs there's 20 LEDs total so presumably they're running each led around 4 watts to extend its usable life and reduce heat output. 10 of those LEDs in each puck are white. White LEDs are way more visible to the human eye than any other color I think it goes red then blue after white and white being four or five times more visible. When I make my own LED lights and I'm shooting for that blue 20K look I typically will run 4 blue LEDs for each white one to achieve that. So when you crank your LEDs up to 70% on the white Channel you're essentially getting around at 10 to 12 K look most likely and it's going to be very hard to overpower that with the t5s the blue outfit on T5 is not nearly as powerful as LEDs to the human eye anyway they do a lot better in the UV Spectrum. On a side note cranking the white up to 70% just to increase the par is not necessarily increasing the usable photosynthetic radiation as much as you think it's commonly believed that corals do much better with blue and UV than they do with white lighting from LEDs. I'm sure there's some experts in this forum that could chime in a little better on that than me. You can try going with really solid blue T5 of different brands but that will also probably give you a power reduction from what you're getting now with the ATI bulbs probably won't do much to overpower how much white LED your running. The right answer is crank the whites on your LEDs down to where you like the look then see where your par is at if it's not good enough then you need to add some kind of supplemental lighting or look at upgrading your lighting. I know that's a really nice fixture with a nice price tag but really it runs a lot more white LEDs than is necessary for someone wanting the look that you are. I would take some measurements on the Gap in between your T5 bulb and your LED pucks it's possible there are some blue LED strips that you could fit in there that would solve your problem even if they overlap and block top or bottom row of LED Puck a little bit well that's the whites for the most part five of them are anyway and you got too much of that already. If I owned the fixture I would jump on eBay and order in some royal blue 5 watt Cree LEDs and go through and replace about half or more of the whites on the boards with royal blue ones. truthfully that's the right answer if you want to boost usable par and keep the Aesthetics of your fixture but it definitely depends on your level of technical expertise.

 

[Cyricdark]

I wanted the blue look. I used 2 Giesemann Actinic Blue & 2 Giesemann Super Actinic. T5’s 100%, LEDS, Royal & Marine Blue ramp up to 80% and never used the white channel. My tank is only 22 inches deep. Never had a problem with my SPS. Watch this video about Jason Fox’s coral farm. Explains a lot of how corals use light.


Couldn’t find any good shots that showed the true color.

Yeah looking at that fixtures specs I thought to myself that I probably wouldn't even run the whites at all those five watt Crees are insanely powerful they use just one of those in those insanely bright flashlights you see at Walmart for twenty bucks. What happens if you turn your white Channel up to even 10% does it shift it into about a 14k look?

 

[Dolelo96]

A bit, but not enough to bother with. My bulbs gave me the color I wanted. Have you played with the “color mixer” in the lights app?

 

[Reefltx]

I have the ati hybrid, to be honestly I don’t even run the whites. Just the blues on with the t5 gives me enough par.

 

[Dolelo96]

I really would take a look at the JF video. He uses only blues and explains why. It wasn’t until after watching his video that I understood more of how to combine my lights and what my corals needed, but I do have a quite a few of his corals, probably have if my tank, so that may be why I’m having such a good response. I should have mentioned that I have tried all combinations of Giesemann, ATI & Korallen Zucht bulbs (have a closet full of them). Took me months to get the look I wanted along with what was best for my corals. Good luck[emoji4]

 

[fishnugget1]

Do you know your par with the T5's you have and just running Blue LEDS? I have a 60" fixture. How far off the water is your fixture? How hard is it to replace LEDs in fixture?