That's what I thought. Wanted to be sure it woul not wash out the colors doing it like I am. I think I'll keep the first period at 12/14k as to keep a little blue.
I really like the 20k look but growth is ssllooww.

Ya, a couple of years ago I experimented with 20K halides. I had my 22K t5s and then 20K Halides for "growing". During that time the "growing" was very very slow LOL. 14/15K is the compromise between great colouration of the 20K and growth of the 10K. It doesn't pop like 20K but grows better. Doesn't grow as well as 10k but doesn't look YELLOW either :-)

So I know the 10k will give me growth but do you think I would be able to maintain color from the 20k.
I know that when 10k is on the colors won't show.

Cause there no point in doin so if I can't have the best of both worlds

I think this depends in part on the coral itself. There will be some corals that just don't react well to certain temperatures of light. That is, some may be perfectly fine basking in 10K light and won't lose any colour at all, while others may not like that colour temperature so much. And in some cases (probably most), it really isn't even a matter of the coral liking one colour temperature over another. Rather, it's their symbiotic nature with zooxantehllae. Zooxanthellae is what gives them both food and colour. Corals will capture, harbour and grow the zooxanthellae species that will give them the best results for nutrient/food exchange.

^translation: Maybe yes, maybe no :-)

What Kein said about symbiosis is very true, if you look at the oceans sps most are tanned to brown, to achieve best results we run our tanks at a much higher kelvin. I noticed the colour of the water changing as I got a few meters from the surface, it got more blue the deeper you went and acros that were deeper had some awesome colouration. Although that being said, some high light species need the blasting of 10k to hold colour. 1 species that likes that spectrum would be pink stylo, under higher k it turns more of a plum purple lower k hot pink.

I guess it's a sacrifice you will have to decide, sticking with the 14k has benefits....

This is probably a really stupid question but how do you calculate the colour temp of your fixture when you have 6 different bulbs? Do an average?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

I'm not to sure on t5. But I imagine your whites are k rated and the blues pinks and such are supplemental.

I run radion so its easy to change k