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We get many messages regarding our lights and lately they seem to be generating more e-mails than usual. Here’s some more information:

The  bulbs we use are a spotlight with a 150w HQI bulb built into a typical spot reflector. The bulbs themselves have a dichroic coating that cuts UV and bounces IR out the back… it also gives them the beautiful blue gleam. Here’s a photo of one of the spots while turned off.

A cool feature about the bulbs we are currently using is that they have a “dual spot” or a spot within a spot. By this we mean the overall temperature is ~10,000K while the middle has a tighter spot that is ~14,000K. This works great for targeting Blue and Purple corals, and still making greens and pinks pop from the 10,000K light surrounding.

Here are two images of the light on and you can see the different color temperatures emitted from the bulb.

When it comes time to replace the bulbs we will be trying a bulb with the opposite effect, as shown below. 

We are only using 2 150w Spotlights and they light up our entire tank very well. Even corals placed on the bottom of our 24in tall tank get good coloration.

One thing to keep in mind is the 2ft distance from the bulbs to the top of the tank. This means some corals are 4ft away from the bulb and still growing well and showing blue and purple coloration! With some changes in mind, we will be lowering the light rack by ~6in which will give higher PAR and should result in even better coloration.

The best ability these lights have is directability– you can angle and direct them so the light goes where you want it. By directing the light to hit the front side of the corals you can cause them to develop pigments on the sides, which is what you see when looking at them through the glass.

Think how beautiful your SPS look when viewed from the top down. This is the same thing. We’ve tried different angles and it can drastically effect coloration. We plan on adding a couple more so we can increase this effect. 

There you have it; We’ll be posting more information at a later time, but this is all for now. For the 8 months we have used these lights we are very pleased and can’t imagine going back to normal Metal Halides anytime soon.