VHO bulbs

[gcantu]

I am planning on purchasing an ICE CAP 660 retro system with 4-36" bulbs. I know that 2 of the bulbs will be Actinic, but how should I know what color the other 2 bulbs should be? Actinic-White or Aqua Sun????? Does any one have any idea. My tank is a 65g and dimensions are 36L x 18W x 23H.

 

[Reef Fever]

Actinic white for the other two.

FWIW, I just bought an ICECAP VHO hood from Champion Lighting that included the bulbs, endcaps, 660 ballast in a nice-looking aluminum hood with splashguard that is well-cooled by a fan. It sits nicely atop my 75-Gallon (I got the 48" 110 watt configuration.)

Two of my lights are Super Actinic, two are Actinic White. The color and brightness of these lights are awesome! My corals are glowing happily and stretching out like never before. This hood has a nice mirrored reflector that is doing a good job. I think that the complete hood was a good purchase for me, it was going to cost me almost $400 to get the retro kit with ballast and then I would have to build my own canopy and deal with cooling, etc.

The hood itself is CustomSeaLife, so you may be able to find it somewhere else cheaper, I dunno.

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

What type of corals do you want to keep? I would agree with Reef Fever if you are keeping LPS and/or softies. If you want SPS, I would strongly suggest the AquaSun.

This very question was recently posted at ReefCentral and included some excellent responses. Do a search there for additional information.

Paul
_________________
Ferrari 400

 

[SPC]

IMO the aqua sun bulbs are a bit yellow, if I were going to run a prop tank this is probably what I would use. If I were forced to run these in order to keep SPS in my display tank then I would look for a different light source.
This is what I run over my 180 which contains some SPS:
1 - true actinic
1- aqua sun
4- 50/50
To answer your question, I would run 3 - 50/50 and 1 - true actinic.
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

I ran 2 110W aquasuns and 2 actinc's (03) for over a year on my 75. No prob with clams or SPS, allthough they grow better under MH.

HTH

 

[Len]

I believe I was part of the thread Paul alluded to in RC. I'll post my response here so you folks don't have to do a search elsewhere.

AquaSuns (daylights) produce more PAR then ActinicWhites (50/50). PAR was assessed with an Apogee Quantum Meter. The reason behind this is quite simple. It takes significantly more input energy to produce blue spectrum. Actinics and ActinicWhites, both which contain higher quantities of actinic phosphor, require more energy to burn then AquaSuns, which use a blend of phosphors which are easier to radiate. The result is AquaSuns produce more PAR (400-700nm) then an equivalent wattage Actinic or ActinicWhite.

So for absolute (PAR) intensity, go with AquaSuns. If you believe spectrum is important (there are arguments on both sides of the fence), try a mixture of AquaSun and Actinics. THis combination also yields the best looking results, IMO (purely subjective). If you really want the blue look, go with Actinics and ActinicWhites, but realize you will lose a significant amount of PAR using this combination. Going all actinics will yield the least PAR.

 

[Paul A. Ifkovits]

Thanks Leonard!

I thought about attempting to paraphrase, but I would be a mere parrot repeating something I frankly understand little about!

Personally, I took Leornard's advice and went with the aquasuns. The only subjective way to describe the difference is as if a shadow has been lifted from the tank. THe SPS adjusted very quickly where their color improved dramatically. The LPS and softies are still adjusting. Some bleached slightly...

Paul
_________________
Ears Nose & Throat Forum

 

[SPC]

Posted by Leonard:
So for absolute (PAR) intensity, go with AquaSuns.

-No question about this. As I said in my above post if I was forced to do this I would go with a different light source. The aquasuns are too yellow for my taste on a reef tank, they look fine however on my FW plant tank.
Steve