Thoughts on the need for white light in your spectrum.

[TK72]

Thoughts on the need for white light in your spectrum. I’m fairly new and though I prefer the color blue gives my tank I’m wondering if white is something that is needed for growth? I’m running three AI primes over a mixed reef 50 gallon.

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

I find the recommended settings to be very blue. I’m assuming that’s for coral growth. I wish it was more white. I occasionally bump up the White for photos or cleaning. But default recommended settings leave it blue!

What’s your settings at? I think the white is more for our personal preference.

 

[TK72]

I find the recommended settings to be very blue. I’m assuming that’s for coral growth. I wish it was more white. I occasionally bump up the White for photos or cleaning. But default recommended settings leave it blue!

What’s your settings at? I think the white is more for our personal preference.

 

[El_Guapo13]

White doesn't really benefit the tank much. More white light generally means more algae. Also, most people on R2R will only use white light as a main part of their lighting schedule purely for display purposes, and by that I mean so they can see everything in the tank clearly without any color hues from blue spectrum or other color spectrums of the lights. However, it looks like most of us don't use it at all except during cleaning, or when we are taking pictures of things we need identified.

Bulk Reef Supply has videos and articles on the subject of lighting for reef tanks. I think they also have one specifically on AI Prime settings. According to them and many other experts, what corals need for proper growth is light within the violet to blue spectrums.

 

[dreamcatcherr9]

Blue. LOL

 

[Rjukan]

I agree with @El_Guapo13 in that I like the look of a bit of white in my tank, I find that most pictures people post on the web are so severely blue that you miss a lot of the detail in the rock and coral.

From what I understand that is one of the benefits of running a Kessil light, you can bump the white a bit so it's pleasing to the eye without the negative effects of running too much white.