6500K for fastest growing corals?

[xenon]

I attended two seminars of Anthony Calfo and he said 6500K bulbs are best for "growing" corals.

What would be the most cost effective type of lighting when you take hydro, bulb cost etc.. into consideration

LED, T5 or MH ???

[Gomer]

curious to this answer. Best growth for a dedicated grow out, who cares if it fluoresces, tank.

[xenon]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11712253#post11712253 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Gomer
curious to this answer. Best growth for a dedicated grow out, who cares if it fluoresces, tank.

Exactly!

Grow the frags to a decent size with 6500K and then switch to 10k to bring out the color. :)

[JCTewks]

I'm no expert by any means but,

I think that it all depends on the corals you are growing. Deepwater Acro's would probably not fare too well under the 6500K lighting....not necessarily from the spectrum, but more from the high PAR they put out. Corals that typically come from a shallow lagoon or tidal flat will prob do well. 6500K is the spectrum of the noon sunlight at the SURFACE of the ocean...once you get more than a few meters down most of the reds are gone and you are looking at a higher K spectrum...get far enough down and it's like a tank lit by all actinic and blue+ T5's.

[xenon]

You may not be an expert but you make perfect sense.

It's so difficult to generalise lighting needs.

[Kenzy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11711791#post11711791 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by xenon
I attended two seminars of Anthony Calfo and he said 6500K bulbs are best for "growing" corals.

That's an interesting comment for todays reefing community. 10-12 years ago with the limited availability of MH lamps that was a generally accepted rule of thumb. Anyone who was serious about growing corals were using 400w Iwasaki 6500k lamps with VHO actinic supplement lighting.

But for today, and todays equipment advances from both a lighting and water quality stand point I would question that as a blanket statement.
IMO 10 years ago we didn't see the diversity of corals available today, hell any "Joe" today can get a frag online that a decade ago would have been unheard of except in research labs.

Like what was said above with more deep water corals coming to market the lighting needs are shifting to higher K lamps.

[xenon]

Aside from the Kelvin rating of lighting.

what is the most cost effective solutions for growing corals?

LED looks expensive to start but will save in hydro costs, lamp replacement and cooling.

T5 will be cheaper on hydro than MH. Cooling costs are lower but the bulbs needs to be replaced every 8-10months,

MH is expensive on hydro, and require more costs in cooling but the bulbs only need to be replaced every 2-4years.

[JCTewks]

the most cost effective will always be natural sunlight :D That's why most coral prop facilites are in greenhouses. Greenhouses have their own costs associated...heating and cooling, but the corals will grow faster.

LED technology is still in it's infancy for reef lighting...bvy the time you buy your LED light and get it set up there will probably be newer, better LED technology available. I wouldn't consider LED as a cost effective option YET...in a few mopre years output will go up, cost will go down, and they'll have more selection of high power LED's available to fill the spectrum that corals need (namely 400-460nm).

T5's are a good bet as bulb selection and output have increased tremendously in the last couple of years. T5's are nice in thast you can custom taylor the look of the tank by just swapping out one bulb for another with a different spectrum.

MH's will need replaced every 12-14 months, not 2-4 yrs. they will still put out light at 2-4yrs, but the spectrum will have shifted to a much yellower look, losing most of it's blue and corals will suffer.

Watt's are watt's when it comes to heat. If you have 175w MH and 175w of T5 they will generate the same amount of heat. It's just a matter of will most of the heat go directly to the tank, or will the room get it.

Coral's CAN be grown under almost any form of light with a suitable spectrum...but EXACTLY what spectrum grow corals fastest is up in the air.

IMO the best artificial lighting for growing corals and maintaing their color is high output MH that are fairly white/yellow (like XM 10K), supplemented with blue+ T5's. You will get good growth from the 10K MH and a nice crisp blu look as well as nice colored corals with the T5's.

[Crawdads57]

I realize this is an anciet thread, but I have a question about a combination of specific models of lights and how people think my chosen corals might fair under them. This is going to look rather silly until you see the explanation of why I'm doing this at the end, so please bear with me...

I have a pair of 12G longs (35.5 X 8.25 X 9.5). I want to have them plumbed in series with a sump / refugium under them. I want to light the top tank with this combination of lights: Current Satellite Planted Plus (http://http://current-usa.com/aquarium-led-lights/satellite-led-fixtures/satellite-freshwater-led-plus/) (36-48") and also on the same tank, a Current Orbit Marine (http://www.current-usa.com/aquarium-led-lights/orbit-marine-fixtures/orbit-marine/) (also 36-48"). Then for the lower 12G long I want to use just a Current Orbit Marine (36-48"). So basically, the top display tank is going to have a reef type light and a 6500K plant type light. The bottom tank - just the Orbit Marine. So 3 lights total. Both models are fully controllable of course.

What would that 6500K light do (in combination with the Orbit) to lets say, zoas, palys, mushrooms, acans, gorgionians, other softies and LPS? Would it be detrimental given this shallow water level? I could raise the lights up a little of course. I imagine its going to be a little hot if nothing else.

_______


Ok, so all the rest of this is the explanation as to why I am asking this silly sounding question, so you don't have to read all of this to answer my question (if you would like to answer my question ;) )

I have these 12G longs already and they are currently a freshwater set up. I bought these with an eventual goal in mind (a multi-tier, in-wall nano reef), and I am building towards that slowly. More slowly than I would like...

Currently, one of these tanks is a display and one is a freshwater refugium of sorts where I grow malawi shrimp and gammarus amphipods for my planted gourami display. Here's point 1) I am lighting the display with the aforementioned Current Sattelite Planted Plus. I already own it, so I want to go ahead and contimue to use it if I can.

The end goal is to buy a third 12G long, so that I have a 3 tank display stack over a sump. Depending on how it all goes I will have to build one heck of a cabinet (or closet) for this, and that's the part I'm putting off for the time being, given my current home and the possibility of a new home.

The final goal would utilize the Current Planted plus on the top display as a display refugium, the next tank would be lit by one of the Current Orbits (this would be my "reef" section") and the third, or bottom display would also be lit my a Current Orbit, but would be turned down fairly low with lots of actinic to showcase some tube anemones, etc.

So my intermediary step is a 2-display-tank setup, for which I already have the cabinet and space. Point 2) I have to buy both of the Current Orbits for this intermediary step anyways, so would I be harming anything to use the 6500K light in tandem with the Orbit? Or am I just going to be letting this 6500K light collect dust until I get to the final goal? That's going to be down the road its seems.

Of course I realize that I can "try it and see" but I was interested to know if anyone had experience with this kind of thing already. Looking at this old post I see some good info, that's why I posted here. But its a rather old post and I'm sure more people have experience with these LEDs by now, so I wanted to see the current advice I might get.

Ok, lunch break is over - have to go back to work :P

I'll post a schematic later of the tank set up, for a little more clarity.