Got my new light

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by kien

Lighting is a very personal choice and if you love actinic bulbs then you love actinic bulbs :-) However, if you want a bit more PAR out of your bulbs but still retain the biofluorescent pop that actinics provide you then I would suggest KZ's 20K SuperBlue (or equivalent 20K T5 from ATI). It isn't an actinic bulb so it has more PAR yet it fluoresces corals quite nicely, similar to an actinic. I use them (KZ superblues) as accents on my Halide+T5 fixture. Just something for your consideration :-)

Also, I didn't know that T5 bulbs varied that much in price?

Thanks for the insight kien

Yah KZs are always $10+ more than ATI. Kinda bumpy!

[kien]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

Thanks for the insight kien

Yah KZs are always $10+ more than ATI. Kinda bumpy!

I don't think I've ever bought ATI bulbs. Mostly KZ and I always got good deals on them from REd Coral or Concepts. The only problem with KZ is that they were always hard to source. Concepts has solved that now I think but for a time I couldn't find KZ bulbs Instead I used a "SuperBlue" bulb from some other manufacturer. I think it was AquaWave or something like that. That looked pretty good too for a non-actinic high blue bulb. It was probably closer to 22K though than 20K.

Anyway, I bring it up because you only have 4 bulbs to play with and if it were me I would want to maximize PAR out of the 4 bulbs. Putting in 2 actinics cuts your PAR virtually right in half immediately leaving you with just two T5 grow lights.

edit: I'm not sure how much PAR the fiji puts out as I don't have much experience or research on them. I had them over my tank once and hated the fiji purple so never used them again.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by kien

I don't think I've ever bought ATI bulbs. Mostly KZ and I always got good deals on them from REd Coral or Concepts. The only problem with KZ is that they were always hard to source. Concepts has solved that now I think but for a time I couldn't find KZ bulbs Instead I used a "SuperBlue" bulb from some other manufacturer. I think it was AquaWave or something like that. That looked pretty good too for a non-actinic high blue bulb. It was probably closer to 22K though than 20K.

Anyway, I bring it up because you only have 4 bulbs to play with and if it were me I would want to maximize PAR out of the 4 bulbs. Putting in 2 actinics cuts your PAR virtually right in half immediately leaving you with just two T5 grow lights.

edit: I'm not sure how much PAR the fiji puts out as I don't have much experience or research on them. I had them over my tank once and hated the fiji purple so never used them again.

Yap. That's why no actinic...Blue+ only