XM lighting ?'s

[swissgaurd]

I ve been in the marine hobby for quite some time and never been so baffled.
ive been using the same, 2x400watt 65k iwasakis (supplemented by 2 uri vhos)for 5 yrs
they have givin me awsome coral growth to the extent that corals want to grow out of water and continue to do so.
only problem is the yellow that comes with these bulbs and the poor color that is produced by the corals.


so i have my mindset on the XM bulbs.
then i read that the 20ks look nice but coral growth is very poor
i figured 20ks would do great but now what???

dimensions of tank are 53"x 18" x 20" (lxwxh)
due to the hieght of the tank will the 20ks do fine or will i need to go with 15ks

ive also been thinking of using one 20k and one iwasaki bulb to keep the par up. maybe a 20 k will over come the yellow from the 65k iwasaki

ballast for the XM's will be ANSI M59

the more i think the more confused i get
what should i do.

thanks
vic

 

[Krish]

I use dual 250w 20K XM's and love the color. Nothing yellow at all about them. I can't say how corals grow under them because I have no corls yet, but I definately love the color.

 

[swissgaurd]

krish it was your tank that inspired me to the 20ks

vic

 

[Krish]

krish it was your tank that inspired me to the 20ks

vic

Cool...I wish you could see the actual color. The camera still isn't accurate enough, but kinda close. A lot better in real life though...Trust me. Especially after the bulbs "broke in"

 

[swissgaurd]

Photo Under 65k Iwasakis

 

[bradreef]

that might be a very drastic adjustment. look at tanks with xm 10k's in them because they are about second in line for growth. they aren't very yellow but mostly a white.

 

[Dragonfly]

I'm using the XM 10K's and am very impressed with them so far. As Brad says they have a crisp white colour and can be nicely supplemented with actinics.

 

[Krish]

Scooter posted this link on one of my threads which allows you to change the spectrum of your bulbs to see which kelvin rating you like. Not sure if you've seen it before, but I thought I'd throw it up just incase you haven't seen it.

http://metricksystem.com/chris/250wcolour/

 

[wrightme43]

If the corals are growing out of the water 20,000k would be the way to go. Get slower growth with outstanding coloration. I use the 20,000k bulbs from xm as well. I am getting very good growth, but it is slower than I had with the 10,000k xm bulbs.

 

[swissgaurd]

i do like the crisp white color with a tinge of blue.
so if 10 k is white with lots of growth and 20k is deeper blue with less growth
then the 15 k bulb would be the best of both worlds.

krishes tank has a crisp white very nice

and my tank has 400 watt and only 20" deep
oh my i getting confused

 

[rudeanduncouth]

I love my XM 10ks! There was a point where one of my fans was broke and and the bulbs turned really yellow. As soon as I fixed the fan it was white again.

 

[wrightme43]

I dont know about the 15k xm bulbs. I have heard that the 20s are actually better.