need a t5 spectrum tutorial

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dalbright82

New member
I need to put bulbs in my hot5. its a 4 bulb 54w 48in over a 55g. I'd love a tutorial or if someone could point me somewhere about how to make the tank look a certain way ex. blue or make the corals stand out more, etc. I like the tanks i've seen on here and when i have been trying to learn about them it sounded like a lot of people liked the ati blue plus. Not clear on what the 1000's of degrees K entails as to what they are best suited for. Right now it's only running on 1 12000k odyssea bulb of unknown age. I like the blue look but i know thats vague. Not sure what combinations and orders look good but also hit the right par for corals. It's just to "bright" in there right now and the tank seems bland. Found a lot of use this bulb in my browsing but not much rationale... thanks
 
From what I have been told you want a bluer tank because in the ocean blue light penetrates water the deepest so its more prevalent thus a bluer tank is more natural. As far as what bulbs that's hottly debated but I think the most popular are ATI blue plus and aquablue special UVL actinic white and super actinic and KZ Fiji purple. The purple is used to make certain colors ie pink purple red orange pop more in the aquarium. Here is a link you might find helpful.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1159820&highlight=giesemann
 
There's not a whole lot you can do with a 4bulb setup,most everyone on here has 6-8bulbs.I have 2-48'' fixtures over my tank and the best you van do is add 2 ATI blue+ and 2 12K bulbs,great color and great ''pop''.
 
For a 4 bulb fixture I would go with

ATI Blue+
ATI Purple+
ATI Coral+
ATI Blue+

If you like a bluer tank replace the Purple+ with another Blue+. The new coral plus does incorporate about 10% red spectrum so it is a good replacement for the Purple+ in a 4 bulb fixture.
 
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