Should I switch to all blue?

[Lavey29]

They sell that kind of stuff because some goofballs think that corals only need blue light ;Hilarious buuuuuuuut
Notice the LED colors?

Wait, they're all not blue??

Not the Kessil too?!?

Gee I wonder if the light is adjustable for intensity and spectrum so each individual reefer can set them their liking.

 

[landlubber]

Gee I wonder if the light is adjustable for intensity and spectrum so each individual reefer can set them their liking.

another anecdote but my lfs only uses white light on the fish only systems. in 7 years of being a customer they've only ever ran blue lighting and have fantastic growth on softies, lps and sps.
i have to agree with your comment, i run 2 gen 5 xr30 radion blues and they can go any color, thunderstorm or anything the hobbyist can imagine... yet we all use the same basic color and intensity. unnecessary bonus features to hook the consumer.

 

[dvgyfresh]

I love the windex look!! I do have whites on for 5-7 hours a day tho , total light time is 13 hours

 

[Duncan62]

Lucky! I've heard that it doesn't get "all blue" until you're deeper than 20ft from other divers but maybe the water clarity was different where they were diving ;Drowning and shhhhh you're being an enabler lol

Take a class. It's addicting. Makes the reef hobby more fun. I'm to old now but I missing everyday. Unless it's high noon it's mostly blue. Even then there's stillnot much white light. I read an article last week about green dominant reefs. I hope it doesn't catch on. Lol

 

[Spare time]

Hi, I've just got a bargain spare blue LED and was wondering if it is beneficial to switch to all blue lighting?
I currently have two 24 inch led tubes, one white and one blue. Every tank in my LFS is lit by just blue light and the corals seem a lot healthier than mine, although in fairness, they probably have a lot more maintenance time than I do.
Would it hurt to experiment for a day or two?
Thanks in advance!

You can run predominantly blue or blue/violet only. However, most people seem to forget that fish and other critters live in the tank, who live and evolved in a vividly lit world. It is possible that blue only ranks may result in behavioral changes in fish compared to tanks lit more similarly to what fish eyes are historically used to

 

[Bpb]

Guys. Please stop spreading the “don’t run whites because they don’t penetrate the water” nonsense. Far red easily penetrate 20-30 meters deep, with IR getting down as much as 2+ meters. Most of our home aquaria aren’t more than 0.67 meters deep. “White” light (otherwise equates to full spectrum from true invisible UV all the way through true invisible IR) penetrates to the bottom of your little 24” deep tank almost as if it’s in open air.

You don’t start seeing full red attenuation until we’ll below where the absolute majority of corals are collected. If you like running all blues, by all means. Carry on. But this pseudo-science google university stuff about “just run blues because corals in the wild never see white light) is just pure nonsense.

Apologies if this comes across as crass and abrasive. But in 3 pages I see gross falsities being spread on this thread, which will carry on to local reef clubs and other social media platforms on the hobby, which harms overall wholistic knowledge on the hobby

 

[madlos123]

Hello im here to crash the party
Running 10,000 k Metal Halide with t5 actinic. 90 gallon 5 months old tank.
To be honest it depends on what is your "theme" your going for.
I used to live in the Philippines and I would go snorkeling all the time on the shallows and the water is more light blue green color. Since its very shallow the light is very white.
Corals dont have any problems growing at that depth.
Although some colors on corals gets washed out compared to all blue. A lot of classic corals that are getting missed really do shine especially the ones that are missing the "flourecence" that glows under blue lighting. such as the yellow porites or blue tort or hot pink birdsnest.
That is what im trying to replicate.
A lot of fish color also really shine in white light.
Also im not having any algae issues since i run a chaeto in a bucket in my sump.
Its not in everyone's taste but Im happy with my setup and that what keeps me motivated
Corals are growing very nicely too

 

[Bpb]

Hello im here to crash the party
Running 10,000 k Metal Halide with t5 actinic. 90 gallon 5 months old tank.
To be honest it depends on what is your "theme" your going for.
I used to live in the Philippines and I would go snorkeling all the time on the shallows and the water is more light blue green color. Since its very shallow the light is very white.
Corals dont have any problems growing at that depth.
Although some colors on corals gets washed out compared to all blue. A lot of classic corals that are getting missed really do shine especially the ones that are missing the "flourecence" that glows under blue lighting. such as the yellow porites or blue tort or hot pink birdsnest.
That is what im trying to replicate.
A lot of fish color also really shine in white light.
Also im not having any algae issues since i run a chaeto in a bucket in my sump.
Its not in everyone's taste but Im happy with my setup and that what keeps me motivated
Corals are growing very nicely too

Beautiful natural color. I’d rather look at that than royal blue only all day

 

[madlos123]

You can really see that nub of yellow porites on the midde right. Put that in a blue led tank and you probably will not see the full potential of that coral.
This tank is 5 months old so its not as filled up coral wise but i got a few good ones in quarantine
Soon the middle sand section will be much more open once i figure out where to place the corals.

 

[Tamberav]

Hi, I've just got a bargain spare blue LED and was wondering if it is beneficial to switch to all blue lighting?
I currently have two 24 inch led tubes, one white and one blue. Every tank in my LFS is lit by just blue light and the corals seem a lot healthier than mine, although in fairness, they probably have a lot more maintenance time than I do.
Would it hurt to experiment for a day or two?
Thanks in advance!

Just because their tanks look blue doesn't mean they are using only blue LEDs. If you look at all the main brand led's sold.. they have a lot more than just blue led's. While you can use all blue + T5's, this is because... while they look blue.. there is a lot more spectrum than just blue.

Old style led's used to be just blue and white... now a days we have full spectrum led's. There is a reason for this... people are able to pull out better colors from corals. Some people toss a 6500k bulb in a t5 set up is done for GROWTH!

Simple fact is... all blue led (I mean actually ONLY the same blue diodes, not just how it appears to your eyes) isn't the ideal set up regardless of what a LFS looks like they are running. Remember that they want the corals to look most neon during hours customers will be visiting as well. They also could have whites... like kessil or radions or so on... it's just generally the blue overpowers the white so you don't really see it but it is there for the corals.

Basically what I am saying is.. yes, it is ok to make a tank look all blue BUT that doesn't mean it is actually all blue. It may just appear that way.

The question really is... what lights do you have exactly what light is this bargain led? and if your coral doesn't look as healthy... if related to lighting... what light should you actually get that may fit in the budget? The answer probably isn't a bargain all blue led.

 

[Planted Reef]

Hi, I've just got a bargain spare blue LED and was wondering if it is beneficial to switch to all blue lighting?
I currently have two 24 inch led tubes, one white and one blue. Every tank in my LFS is lit by just blue light and the corals seem a lot healthier than mine, although in fairness, they probably have a lot more maintenance time than I do.
Would it hurt to experiment for a day or two?
Thanks in advance!

Take it slow. I cut my whites down too quickly and all of my coralline algae turned white. After a few weeks of waiting to see if it would recover (didn't) I added more white slowly and coralline colored back up. Took it slower the next time and the coralline adapted.

 

[nicodim55]

I have my white leds on only between 4-5 hours, the rest of the times are just blues. I still get growth with my hard corals with running less whites. Now granted, some people out there do not consider montis, stylo, pocis as being hard corals but I do lol. You do you, At the end of the day you’re the one who’s looking at your tank. Just enjoy it and relax

Hi, I've just got a bargain spare blue LED and was wondering if it is beneficial to switch to all blue lighting?

I currently have two 24 inch led tubes, one white and one blue. Every tank in my LFS is lit by just blue light and the corals seem a lot healthier than mine, although in fairness, they probably have a lot more maintenance time than I do.
Would it hurt to experiment for a day or two?
Thanks in advance!

Hi, I've just got a bargain spare blue LED and was wondering if it is beneficial to switch to all blue lighting?
I currently have two 24 inch led tubes, one white and one blue. Every tank in my LFS is lit by just blue light and the corals seem a lot healthier than mine, although in fairness, they probably have a lot more maintenance time than I do.
Would it hurt to experiment for a day or two?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Reefvision]

I asked my lfs why he lit coral tanks with only blue led lights( kessil) and was he pointed to the ceiling lights all white fluorescent tubes and said what do you think they are ?lol!! Nuf said!

 

[Koh23]

One upon a time i have frag tank and it was lighted with single 10w 30000k chinese no name led.......

Such growth and color i newer saw in display tank..... U litteraly can see daily how thing grow, no algae, nothing.....

Still fighting to set lights od dt now, and far the best light i ever have was diy with 10w noname chips, 1:1 ratio 30000k white : royal blue, with some uv chips.....




And big tank with diy 3w royal blue + 3w chinese 10000k leds 1:1 ratio...

 

[RossV]

I was just in my LFS yesterday and my coral vendor farm shop 2 weeks ago and saw no white light or if they were running then the percentage was so low the eyes can't pick it up.

There have numerous successful tanks running nothing but blue spectrum variations but I can't think of one reef tank that runs all white and no blue or UV

Were you there for 24 hours?

 

[Lavey29]

Were you there for 24 hours?

Nope, but I asked them about their lighting schedule and spectrum. Do you run your lights for 24 hours?

 

[vetteguy53081]

So I personally hate white light in my reef. But unfortunately white light produces the most amount of PAR.

After lots of research and discussing with various people I decided to run the WWC 1500g SPS dominated radion schedule.

The schedule is AB+ setting from 9am to 1PM 25% whites, 100% blues and 10% red and green. From 1PM to 3PM it is a modified version of AB+ with whites at 15%, 100% blues and green and red at 5%. After 3PM the light is 100% all blue no whites, red or greens.

The reason I switched to this schedule is because 1I had extremely low PAR in my reef and I run 3 Radion XR15Pro Gen 5 and I noticed my WD acro was green not that pretty goldish yellow green.

Some white is needed if you want to grow your corals. Sadly white really helps but man it does look ugly. I am currently running a 30 day acclimation on the schedule but so far everything seems to be responding well.

I added some photos with the PAR value at various locations in the tank

I had all blue at my LFS because it wascheaper and brought out the colors of my coral increasing sales.
The Ocean is not all blue therefore warranting the need for UV and daylight.

 

[stephj03]

Man this thread is are so emblematic of how easy it is to connect the wrong dots to make an upside down pyramid.

This is almost as good as one that was going on in the fragging/shipping sub about how heat packs do more harm than good.

 

[Zeal]

Man this thread is are so emblematic of how easy it is to connect the wrong dots to make an upside down pyramid.

This is almost as good as one that was going on in the fragging/shipping sub about how heat packs do more harm than good.

i laughed

 

[Gordi]

And I still don't know!!?