Actinic 03 lights from hellolights.com

[Korbin]

After putting a blue (12000K I think) light over my tank and seeing all my corals light up, I decided to put an actinic light on a separate circuit over my tank so I could have just the blue light on. Under the blue light, my orange zoanthids glowed orange, my green zoanthids glowed green, my pink zoanthids glowed pink, and my orange ricodia glowed brightly as well.

 

So I was looking at Hellolights.com, and they have an "actinic 03" PC bulb that is the "real deal", not just a blue light. Its supposed to make your corals glow better than a blue light. Goodie. So I order a little 13 watter, and try it out. I was disappointed.

 

The color is pretty cool. Its more of a violet than a blue. But not a dark violet. Its sort of a washed-out, grey violet. You could tell this light is actually ONE color on the color spectrum, as advertised. The thing I was disappointed with was that none of my orange or pink zoanthids glowed under it. My orange ricordia was almost invisible. Greens showed up well, though, especially the candycane. But I personally think my corals colors showed up 100 times better under the regular blue bulb.

[Physh1]

Yes, 03 is violet in color and doesn't always look great after using the blue PC but the true 03 is more natural. The 03 will react differently under Metal Halide. It seems to be a lot more useful there but when using pc's the standard bluw is usually the fav.

 

A lot of it is a preference thing also....

 

Cameron

[OscarBeast]

I really enjoy the color that I get by mixing the 03s and 10,000K PCs from Hellolights. The daylight bulb over powers the actinic a little more than I care for, but when I take a good look at some of my corals and my royal gramma, they really glow. Honestly, I just don't know if a 13 watt Actinic PC would have enough "umph" to give you the desired results. I was reading around that PC actinics don't have quite the same output. They are always going to look visually much darker, but the LUX output is slightly lower than a same wattage 10,000K bulb.

 

Over all, you really have to know what you want when buying the bulbs.

 

If you are only looking for color adjustment, the blue 7100K bulbs would probably work better because they are a little brighter and mellow out white/yellow color well. If you are looking for the actual benefit of having Actinic 03s, such as the coral growth and the fluorescing of the corals, these bulbs are the way to go.

 

Personally, I think the blue PCs put out a light that is not very pleasing. I like the way my stuff light up with actinic.

 

Also the point of use with HM was brought up. Corals and such don't usually color up quite a well under PCs. When corals are subjected to lower levels of light, less of the fluorescing zooxanthellae is produced and the more efficient "brown" zooxanthellae are produced to make up for the light difference. This would mean when you put an Actinic on your corals that have been under PCs, they wouldn't "glow" quite as well as corals that have been under MH then exposed to Actinic only for a dusk/dawn cycle.

[Korbin]

Thanks for the info, Oscarbeast. The 13 watt does actually make a difference on my 12 gallon. The blue is just enough to make the corals "glow" when its on alone. I was surpised, actually.

(Plus its better to find out what bulbs I like with a $6 13 watt before I invest in some bigger bulbs in the future)

I have to admit, the candycane is so bright that it almost hurts your eyes to look at when its under the "actinic 03".