why do I always have to change stuff?? actinic question

[five.five-six]

a little background, when i got back into reefing over a year ago, I picked up a 100 gallon system on craigslist, I promptly changed the old halide lamps to hamilton 14k 250's i was running them with out actinic and I was fairly happy with the color, but not so happy with the coverage and efficiency of the 2 24" pods.

I became a lot less happy with it when I stopped by Jose Casa's house and saw his lumen max reflectors with heliose 20 k lamps, even though they were too blue for my taste, I loved how 3X250 with the lumen max setup lit up a 5'-6' tank, so i bought them from him and have been running them

fast forward, now I have 3X lumemmax III with galaxy ballasts with AB aqualine busch 10k lamps and a PFO VHO ballast running 2 X 5" 140 watt URI super actenic lamps and it is just too yellow for me, not by much but a bit, in reality, from the free diving I have done reefs, it does look pretty darned natural. I guess what i am looking for is how to make it bluer. right now I am using the internal reflector on the VHO lamps, and was wondering if adding a reflector would help much or if there was a lamp with bluer output, as these actinics seem fairly white to me

[Doubledown]

AFAIK, the URI VHO super acrinic is as blue a bulb as you will get. Adding a reflector to these will not help as their own internal reflector directs the light already.

If the tanks appearance is too yellow you will either have to add an additional VHO super actinic bulb or change your metal halide bulbs to a higher kelvin. If you want to make that change, I recommend the Ushio 14K bulb. Very nice bright white with a hint of blue.

Another thing to consider is how old your current bulbs are. Bulbs will color shift over time towards the red and yellow spectrum and appear to be a different color. If you bulbs are around 8 month or so, I would expect this is the case (especially so on Galaxy ballasts that are reported to overdrive bulbs similar to an HQI). If the bulbs are this old they will need to be replaced, and if you liked the look of the tank before then replace them with the same bulb.

Hope that helps.

[five.five-six]

That helps a lot. A bit more info. The tank is new, and with a crash 6 months ago, most of my corals are ~4mos. old frags, so I am interested in growth right now.

Another point of interest. I got 2 of the lamps new at a very good price, while looking for the 3rd, I found someone selling a new lamp with 2 that were stated to be 5 mos. old. I jumped on it because I like having spares.

Last night I installed the used ones. I wanted to see before I turned my 3 X new lamps into "almost new” I did notice this, they are slightly different colors. One is fairly white and the other has a hint of red (to my eye) even though the lamps look physically newish, I am suspecting they have a bit more than 5 mos. time on them.

[five.five-six]

well i sent a very nice email to the seller double checking the age of the used lamps 2 days ago, and judging from the lack of a response, I am guessing that they ae a lot older than 5 mos, I think i am going to stick the new ones in. I like the very bright white. the side of the tank with the heliose 20k lamps, even the sand look blue ;)