SaltISlife
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2020
- Messages
- 695
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- What state or country do you live in
- Virginia
So i have 4 T5s on a plant grow fuxture from amazon two fixtures to cover all 72 inchs of my 135g. I use old aqueon nornal outout t5 fixtures with two bulbs, and just use my old blue plus and coral plus bulbs in them just for that little extra bit of light.
And for night time i have a blue led strip to make the corals pop.
I decided to buy 4 actinic bulbs to put into my two old normal output fixtures. (They will only run at 28 watts due to being nornal output) but oh my god.. i have never used actinic before.
I cannot believe how nice my corals look at night now when i turn my main fixture off. The blue leds and the actinic bulbs together..
Wow
Look at the difference.. especially with my elegance coral.. and look how much more my green goni glows. It like turned my tabk from a dark deep blue with glowy corals.. to purple/blue with radioactive infused glowy corals lol. It also brought out the purple tips on my elegance like crazy.
The ONLY negative is i noticed it washed out some of the corals with golds. Like my dragon soul torch and my golden hammer. The golds are almost gone. But 90% of my other corals wow..
Im glad i did this. Store manager was putting me down with using t5s and said the actinics would be washed out using blue leds.. but they compliment eachother lovely.. i had a feeling he was wrong anyway as he tried to tell me the ati blue olus were what true actinic looks like. But i know true actinic bulbs are violet. I know blue plus has some actinic in it and 460nm is more blue but yea. He seemed like a led fanboy anyway.
I thought about going to lowes and buying two 54w t5ho ballasts to replace the old NO (normal outout) ballasts in the old fixtures.. it would run the actinics at full power then.. but man im impressed.
i will say when i have my regular fixture on with the blue plus and coral plus on. Actinic doesnt do TOO much. Its there but not noticable unless you flip the light on and off to see. But at night... just pure violet actinic with blue leds. Wow this is like the best upgrade ive done in 2 years on my tank lol
And for night time i have a blue led strip to make the corals pop.
I decided to buy 4 actinic bulbs to put into my two old normal output fixtures. (They will only run at 28 watts due to being nornal output) but oh my god.. i have never used actinic before.
I cannot believe how nice my corals look at night now when i turn my main fixture off. The blue leds and the actinic bulbs together..
Wow
Look at the difference.. especially with my elegance coral.. and look how much more my green goni glows. It like turned my tabk from a dark deep blue with glowy corals.. to purple/blue with radioactive infused glowy corals lol. It also brought out the purple tips on my elegance like crazy.
The ONLY negative is i noticed it washed out some of the corals with golds. Like my dragon soul torch and my golden hammer. The golds are almost gone. But 90% of my other corals wow..
Im glad i did this. Store manager was putting me down with using t5s and said the actinics would be washed out using blue leds.. but they compliment eachother lovely.. i had a feeling he was wrong anyway as he tried to tell me the ati blue olus were what true actinic looks like. But i know true actinic bulbs are violet. I know blue plus has some actinic in it and 460nm is more blue but yea. He seemed like a led fanboy anyway.
I thought about going to lowes and buying two 54w t5ho ballasts to replace the old NO (normal outout) ballasts in the old fixtures.. it would run the actinics at full power then.. but man im impressed.
i will say when i have my regular fixture on with the blue plus and coral plus on. Actinic doesnt do TOO much. Its there but not noticable unless you flip the light on and off to see. But at night... just pure violet actinic with blue leds. Wow this is like the best upgrade ive done in 2 years on my tank lol
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