actinic question

M

mukymuk

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I'm considering adding some actinic's to my halide-only setup. I'm trying to get a my croals to fluoresce a bit.

The last time I used florescent bulbs (over ten years ago), I had T12 actinics and they worked well. Are they still the best for the job or are do T5 actinics work well now?
 
Just another option, but you could get an LED strip or two for color as well. Then no need to really worry about bulbs anytime in the near future (or added heat).


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I like the color already, just need a little fluorescence. I know there are some LED's in the 420-440 range now, but I don't know if they are as practical as fluorescent actinics just yet.
 
For the sake of discussion; how do you define practical? Seems LED's would be the winner in practicality IMO.


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Practical as opposed to theoretical. Some LED's claim to be in the proper range, but I personally don't know if they are or if they are sufficiently powerful in that range to cause corals to fluoresce at a comparable price.

Florescent bulbs are well known to be able to get the job done. LED's theoretically can, but I don't know of a specific product that actually does. The only thing I personally know is that T12 VHO's can, and Issac mentioned some T5's that can as well. I'm just trying to avoid is buying stuff that doesn't work for my application or spending more than I have to.
 
Vho actinics, leds, t5's are how I would rate them from my personal experience.

With leds a close second, if you can find a used led actinic bar I would go that route

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I'm a huge fan of the VHO actinics, but I have seen some of those LED actinic strips that just absolutely mnake the corals glow. I think they had the phillips actinic led's in them. I would look for some of those.
 
In two years or less you would spend the same on replacement bulbs than the cost of a couple of quality led strip's, which last at least 5 year, YMMV

Cheers,
 
Yeah, I really like the idea of not having to change bulbs, but priority is on getting the actinic effect I want. I probably should have mentioned this before, but I need to supplement a 400G deep tank that has 1800W of halides on it. The typical LED strip isn't going to cut it, I think. My suspicion is that I'd need so many LED's that it would be cost prohibitive.

That said, I have been poking around ebay and the 3W 420nm LED's are getting pretty cheap...
 
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