lighting on a 55 gallon

[fmelindy]

just wondering about appropriate lighting for a 55 gallon tank. Last year when I set the tank upi initally bought a combo of 4X96 watt power compact which were half actinic and half white. Later when I started to get interested in corals, I added a retro fit kit to my hood consisting of 2X175 watt metal halide which were supposedly 13000K bulbs. However, I think I may have been misled on the bulbs since it looks awfully yellow to me. SOrry I don't have a dig camera to take a pic.
Anyway, I was thinking of changing the MH bulbs to 20000K and keeping the PC lighting the same. Do you think it would be too blue? I wish I had a pic so I could show you how yellow it looks now. It just doesn't seem right to me...

 

[tak1968]

The higher up the k latter you go the more blue the light and bulb is. Hope this helps. I run 2 250wt 20000k with no other bulbs on my 75gal. with no problems. Tak

 

[fmelindy]

So you run only blue-tinged bulbs? So is it really unnatural looking? Or do you find that it has enough of a white hue to compensate? That gives me hope that with my 2 96 watt white PC bulbs it should be a good balance. Anyone else care to weigh in on the issue?

 

[tak1968]

the 20000k bulbs that i use are german made and are white bulbs. The 20000k bulb gives off red, yellow, and blue light from the bulb. The 20000k gives off more blue light from the blue end of the spectrum then the yellow end or what most people think is white light. The blue end of the spectrum or blue light is what the corals ( lsp,sps or soft ) need to survive and grow. In the bottem of my tank it looks like daylight and this is the light you want and need to get to the bottem for all the things to survive. Even thought the bulb gives off more blue light it still looks like daylight. This is the way is was explained to me and it was easer for me to understand it this way. I hope i have helped. And by no means am i an expert so ask around their is someone out their that know more then me. Tak

 

[tak1968]

I think that if you went with the two 96wt. pc and the two 175wt 20000k you would do just fine on a 55gal. It would be around 9.8 wt, per gal. You should be able to do sps and even clams if you would like. Tak

 

[fmelindy]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing and thanks for the info. But ideally I hsould have been able to do clams all along since my watts per gallon have always been the same. But I tried a crocea not long ago and he just lost all his color and then slowly wasted away. It seemed typical of not getting enough light ot me (though I'm aware that lots of factors could have contributed to his demise). That's why I was thinking there must have been something wrong with my bulbs or maybe the spectrum of light in my tank. Although at the time the nitrates in my tank were around 20 so maybe that did it....

 

[mary]

Blue light does diminish the beautiful red and orange colors if you have them. I happen to like a lot of blue but when my other lights go off, my red doughnut and gorgeous orange-red wrasse really become dull. Blue affects yellows and other colors also. Experiment by picking up some colored squares of paper at a crafts store and pick up one transparent piece of blue: white and yellow . I think a good combo of lights works best.

 

[mary]

:thinking: You know, I must be crazy! Just was looking at my tank with all blue lights on, and it is really the wrasse and the by-tailed blenny that appeares to be much duller, not the corals. The brown star that is usually almost orangy brown, very intense, is the only real color change I could decipher. Didn't mean to mislead anyone. After writing the previous notation on blue light, guess I took a much more detailed look and had to rush back upstairs to the computer to right my wrong! And I"m an artist?