8k Vs 10k Vs 15k Vs 20k

[ThePaliga]

Alright guys. Lighting question for everybody. In regards to coral growth vs colour pop. What does everybody use? What kind of growth rates do you experience vs how the coral look. I'd like to get some opinions here for possible future purchases.

 

[Kman]

First what are you wanting to keep? What would you be going for? Growth, color?

 

[Nonuser]

pretty sure the 8k and 10k are for fresh planted tanks and the 16 20 are salt. I think the lights are pretty important and LED's although expensive for initial purchase they are more affordable in the long run.

T5's are plug and play you just need the correct tubes and away you go, same with halides. But T5's need changing ever 6 months and like 30$ a pop. Halides longer lasting, but heat is a major issue.

Led's are harder to tune but last longer and no replacement of bulbs.

But i'm not to bright so an expert will tell ya what is truly correct soon

 

[ThePaliga]

Mainly, what I'm looking for is what everyone else uses.. more of an opinion question here than anything else. Right now, I have the 15k Razor over my tank and I think it looks great. But has anyone experimented with lower k numbers? Better growth or...?

 

[EricTMah]

I have two 10k 120w maxspects and two vertex illumilux blue over my 120.
I've tried to run lower k. Like 12k ish. Good growth. But colour suffered.
I currently have it around the 16-18k range and still amazing growth and much better colours from my sps.

Sony Xperia Z3

 

[Skim]

Well that is a tough one. Depends on what you want, and where the Corals are from. Deep water or shallow water. For shallow water Corals ( ya Shallow being say up to 60 deep ) and fast growth 6500k has always proven to be the best more Colour and a little less growth 10K and from here it is more for Colour effect 15K and 20K. It's hard as most of the info out there is bassed on MH use as LED is still considered quite new. In MH the PAR levels would drop as you moved to a Higher Kelvin rating I do not believe that is the same for LED and that is why I believe many people have burned Corals because as you increase the Kelvin rating it tends to look darker to our eyes and people will turn up the intensity on the lights. As a general rule if you want colour and growth 10 to 15k much past that things start to get pretty blue. That is probably why the LED's are so popular with being able to adjust the colours and Kelvin you can make it look the way you want.