actinic or royal blue fluorescent by coralife?
 

Does anyone have any experience with the new royal blue compact fluorescent bulbs by Coralife? We have been using a combination of the coralife true actinic and 10000k white. Now these royal blue are out and I wondered if they are better for a saltwater reef or not as good??? They peek at 470 nanometers and the actinic peak at 420. The royal say they are below 50 relative energy and the actinic are over 50 - not sure what this part means but it is on the box. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Bump - I'm also interested in these Royal Blues. Anyone have experience with them?

Hi there- my post was from a year ago and I since got the scoop on them from Coralife. They did not recommend them for reef tanks since the wavelengths and spectrum are wrong on the royal blue. They color option is for looks only and are fine for fish only tanks. I saw them in the lfs and they do look nice, but I took them back and got the true actinics. Hope that helps.

About 8 months ago I replace one of the actinics on my 4x65w Coralife Aqualight with one of the Royal Blues(the other two were Coralife 10k). I preferred the color of the Royal Blue and found that the coralline, zooanthids, and mushrooms did just fine under it. Actually, the coralline grew much better on that side of the tank although I have no evidence if that was from the blue light or some other unknown factor. I might be wrong on this, but I think the corals get most of their energy for growth from the 10k and lower spectrums.

haha- this is an old thread indeed..

there is no difference between 420nm and 470nm really expect color- corals wont give a darn any way... the 470nm will add only more intensity and more of a blue color than the purple 420nm...

BUT there is the growing theory, that 450-470 actually may produce more PAR than 420nm will, strange as it may seem

what it boils down to is this: what look you like- dont go by what coralife says- they are angry by the whole current usa competition because they splice 460nm into their tubes..

Thank you folks, very much. I went with Actinic 03s from Hellolights, and they look great. Swashbuckler, may I ask what you mean when you say they "splice" 460 into their tubes?

I don't know for sure since it was so long ago, but at the time I wrote down what Coralife said and the nanometers weren't the same. Also the colors on the spectrum weren't right for corals/ They sold both and didn't recommend the royal blue to me. ???

they dont recommend it b/c their marketing dept told them otherwise

what i meant about the "splicing" was current usa's sunpaq DUAL actinic (one tube 420, and one 460 in one complete bulb) coralife actually has something like this out as a means to get with the competition, but they still have yet to implement them as stock in their fixtures..

hellolights i hear are fantastic bulbs, but have yet to see them myself.