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Luis

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I upgrade to halides!!!

Well I got a 20000k bulb and I have space for 6 more pc bulbs in the canopy, the 20000k looks very blue, do I need to put actinic pc bulbs or I just go with daylights? I'm wondering if my corals need actinic light besides this metal halide bulb.

Thanks.
 
A

Anonymous

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I would go with 10000k PCs to whiten up the blue, maybe 1 actinic just for when all the other lights turn out if you want that purplish night time look for a few hours. You'll already hurting on PAR with that bulb because you got 20000k, so you need to put back what you took away.

But don't worry too much, chances are your stuff has gotten use to less lighting so going to a 20kK bulb is probably a nice transition, you'll be replacing that bulb in 9-12 months anyways if you don't like it :)
 

cygnus

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PAR Photosynthetic Available Radiation,, which is jsut a fancy term for usable light. Plants respond to particular freq/wavelengths of light, those freq near the red end and the blue end of the EM spectrum, have the best PAR because they impart more light energy to the plants pigments. It is a fucntion of freq and intensity so ANY blue light or RED light will not work. Best to just stay within the 10 to 14 K color range and you'll be good to go on PAR, PAR as far as I am concered is just another sales pitch. It does not take into account the adaptablity and the flexebilty of life to adjust and thrive in condtions out side of the so called "Text book norms"
 
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Anonymous

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PAR is basically a fancy term for how much light energy is available between 400 and 700 nanometers (visible wavelengths) since with bluer lights they tend to be REALLY blue (ie one large spike around 460nm or so) they lack in other areas of the spectrum and as a result have lower energy at those wavelengths. Now the yellower bulbs (10000k, 6500k) are much more efficient at spreading out the spectrum more evenly as a result you get larger PAR values (ie more total energy).

I wouldn't call PAR a marketing gimmic though, it's a real quantity, it has real affects, and those have been measured. You get much better growth with 6500k bulbs than you do 20000k bulbs, but the 20000k bulbs make the corals look nicer, so it's a trade off with what we want. It's literally the same way a 250w bulb will put out more light than a 175w bulb. Now I agree there is no "needed" PAR that you have to have over your corals, but higher PAR would lead to more growth since there's more energy for the photosynthetic junk to convert to food. And yes there is some adjustments, I mean you can bleach corals by putting them under too much light (even though its less than that of the sun) because they were used to lower light conditions, but the bottom line is food is food whether it comes from the water column or sunlight and corals need it to grow, more "food" more growth, much in the same way someone eatting burgers every day can live just like someone eatting tofu and salad, just the burger eater will get larger quicker :)
 

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