Final Say on Coralvue 20k 400 watt!!!

[mattseattle]

that's a good point! coloration of the corals. something i'm somewhat dealing with right now. i think we talked about this at the meeting.

i have one coral that is supposed to be purple and the new growth is purple but the rest is a whitish-brown. i've moved it around the tank and up high trying to get it to color but so far no luck. the rest of my corals and their colors look fine.

i'm running 250w 10k XM's with 2x110 Super Blue VHO's. You'd think I'd have a somewhat well balanced color of corals.

Let me know how the color of your corals change with the new lighting. I'm definitely interested. When I change my bulbs next time I may go with 20k's but I'm having such amazing growth with XM 10k's it'd be hard for me to change.

 

[Shoreliner11]

I have a 250watt de xm 20k and I know that it is different from the 400w 20k se, but I can't say enough good things abou this bulb. I do know that the picture shown with the xm 20k is not accurate imo. It is tough for a camera to pick up the true look of the 20k with out white balance played with or changes made in photoshop. IMO its not too white or too blue, and the color of my corals shows it. Good luck with your decision. Also to add, I have not used the Coralvue so I have a biased opinion I guess.

 

[Katchupoy]

Shoreliner...I hope you can post some pics...

 

[Shoreliner11]

Sure. Being that the color balance is off on my camera I adjust the color balance in photoshop to be imo as close in to the real thing. With that said the pic is a little dark cause of the angle with the light reflecting sand. I'll see if I can get another. Here's a pic.

 

[mattseattle]

now that is the color i want my tank to be. guess i'll try the 20k XM's next time.

how is your growth?

 

[Shoreliner11]

Here's another pic. I think the color is about the same. Now keep in mind these are 250w de 20k xm's run on an hqi ballast and not the mogul based 400 watt xm. I would imagine their color to be very similar. Also, I hear that running a 20k on an hqi ballast for mogul based helps a lot with the whiteness of the bulb.

 

[Katchupoy]

Hey Matt, shore is referring to the XM's DE.... and not SE's

 

[Shoreliner11]

My growth is good. I made a stupid mistake a couple months ago and lost all of my sps and much of my lps declined heavily. They are making a comeback but the sps frags/small colonies I have now show great color. Which is why I wanted the bulb in the first place. Just to make sure Cesar, are you using any actinic along with the bulb? If so, I would definately go with the coralvue instead cause I believe that would be too blue. I hope the color is not that different in the se ended but again I haven't seen the se

 

[mattseattle]

Cesar - would the color be that different in the DE version versus the SE?