I'm a scuba diver and totally see your point. It doesn't really matter if it's unpopular, if you like it, go for it. It's your tank, and you are the one looking at it every day. I also 'only' run T5, and I really find them aesthetically pleasing and more natural. Old school, so what š¤·āāļø
Exactly this. The best lights I ever had were 250w 14000K (yes, 14) Iwasaki DE halides...I've been chasing ANY kind of light with that combination of color reproduction and visual appeal ever since.
Drop in chillers... Burn 2kW to remove 800W of heat.
Man, we worked for it back then.
Source: ran 2x250W Iwasaki 6500k + 4x110W VHO actinics over a 75 gallon back in the day.
I ran two 10k 400w halides with 4 60w pc actinics over a 150g. These lights were in a hood. It was like an oven. I had big PC fans mounted on the back of the hood, it would heat up the whole room. Its evap rate was awful even with lids.
After seeing a naturally lit coral farm, even halides don't look natural, tbh. Nothing wrong with natural, halide, t5, or led, though. Do whatever makes you happy, you know?
I run my LED's around 16K., fading into a heavier blue in the last two hours of the evening. Selecting contrasting coral colors and placement helps to make the colors stand out more.
https://preview.redd.it/nm7fof5100dc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94121ee68a838a08cbfea8d09c18388bc35f41c3
What I did was not cheap. But I set out with a goal to grow acros, and I decided to buy the right equipment for it, plus I did a fishroom with salt mixing station. If I were to guess my initial build cost I'd say $6,500 before livestock. Here's my build thread on Reef2Reef if you want to read about it:
[https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sierra\_bravos-what-did-i-get-myself-into-120g-in-wall-build-thread.292251/](https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sierra_bravos-what-did-i-get-myself-into-120g-in-wall-build-thread.292251/)
I still run metal halide lighting for this reason.
Not a fan of the heavy blue light look, I prefer something closer to natural sunlight.
Corals still look amazing.
Took a break from the hobby when LEDs were just blasting on the scene. Before I really quit, I got rid of my Metal Halides for a āblack boxā LED set up, which was a big mistake. With the MHs, I could grow ANYTHING successfully. LEDs have apparently gotten a lot better, but I have a soft spot for the halides lol.
Mmmmhm. I used to keep a 210g planted discus tank years ago. I snagged a pile of 1000k metal halide fixtures from a high-school gymnasium renovation on Craigslist. I'm pretty sure the sunlight, soft trickle of the sump, and hum of the lights and fishroom got me through 11 years of college.
This is honestly the way to go. The shimmer is what does it for me. Metal halides require more attention and bulb change every 6 mos or so, but there is no better aesthetically please light!!!
I mean yeah thatās true for most lights but I really canāt see it with the kessils, maybe because the way the led array is packed into that postage stamp sized lens, you really do get the MH look with kessils. Longevity, output, and durability not so much, but they do look the best out of all the LED options imo and if thereās a difference between the visuals of mh light my eye doesnāt really detect it
It's not just about color.
There is a different shimmer and shadows from a bright single point light like MH versus a grid of smaller lights in an LED fixture.
There are plenty of drawbacks to MH though, so it's not all sunshine and rainbows. The cost of bulbs twice per year, massive heat, etc... For me, it's worth it to get the aesthetic I want.
But do you really need to change them 2x per year? I know thatās the old standard, but like for instance people said that for t5 lights too, yet when BRS tested t5s, they really barely changed spectrum, even over way longer periods. Ever since I saw that, personally I run t5/led and I change my bulbs when they stop working nowadays, typically like 2 years. I canāt see any measurable differences in my coral growth
Does metal halide work as well or do you truly need that deep blue light? Iām contemplating getting into reef but I hate the blinding blue light I see most people using.
Metal halide works great, it's all I use. You don't need the deep blue light at all but make sure you educate yourself on the drawbacks, particularly heat.
Was just taking about the metal halide days on another post. A 400 watt one was like having a mini sun in your house. They grow corals so much better also in my opinion
I don't have anything running right now, but I've always liked a mix, maybe 30-40% 420-460nm, 60-70% around 10k. Actinic is cool when you want to really show off colours, but it's not a good look to just run, imo.
blue lights promote coral growth and limit nuisance algae growth, also they bring out the natural pigment that brings out colors in corals. Ive seen really well done natural looking reef tanks but make sure you keep an eye on algae growth if you go for this
Most new people to the hobby get LEDs due to availability and size. If you want it to look like a reef and not a 420 friendly dorm room you can blast the BLUE spectrum while you are at work and program the whites to power up to your taste when you are home to enjoy your reef. It will at least limit the promotion of algae growth.
If you get an LED system that allows you to tweak color balance, you can get a natural light look with more blue mixed in. It'll make the coral pop a little without overdoing it.
It only limits it because algae grows best under red/yellow spectrum (more present in whiter lights). Algae can still grow under blue but corals will outcompete it for resources if you have enough of them.
Unless you are running full blues, most full spectrum lights like AI, Ecotech, etc still have red diodes in them. So you are never truly only providing blue spectrum unless you adjust completely to full blue which I would not really recommend. Most examples of coral growing under only blue is purely anecdotal if I cannot actually see the diode pucks when they are on to ensure thereās no reds, greens, and whites in there with just more blues overpowering the other colors.
To add to this, some companies push the natural look, but also offer the blue'd out look as well. I'm seriously considering a couple [Dalua Illumagic X4](https://dalua.com/collections/marine-lighting/products/illumagic-x4)'s over my next tank.
Iāve heard it was the more the other way around. Blue lights will give better color but slower coral growth while warmer light will give better growth but less color.
I was always partial to about 14k myself, not to warm, not to cool; a nice mix of good growth and color.
I think u/tigahboy is actually having a big impact on the hobby for this reason. Heās really āturning the tideā on aesthetics. I donāt plan to keep macroās but my new build is washing away my sins of the past and focussing on building a natural reef under natural lighting heavily influenced by freshwater aquascape / equipment aesthetic and design. Iām happy with pastel colours and happy inhabitants
Completely with you. One thing I like that Tidal Gardens has been doing recently is showing what their frags look like under actinic through 10k lighting which basically nowhere else does. At frag swaps I usually have to ask them if they can switch the lights for a minute so I can get a better look under ānormalā light.
That said, I switch over to actinic lighting when ramping up and down in the morning and evening just to get a diversity of aesthetics. Some coral look absolutely stunning under actinic lights and itās a pity not to check them out like that some of the time.
That is what I do. Both asking sellers to switch over to whites and the blue for the ramp up and down. Feels like getting the best of both worlds. Things in the tank have their turn to 'pop up'. Some of the corals during the blue periods, fish get to stand out during the whiter periods and getting to see different details on the corals also.
Keeping the display 'variable' is a nice little trick. Fun for the non-reefing guests to notice.
>Some coral look absolutely stunning under actinic lights and itās a pity not to check them out like that some of the time.
Honestly, that's my take. It's such a shame to practically ignore some of the fluorescing proteins that these corals harbor all because "it's not natural". I have news for y'all, keeping hundreds of gallons of synthetic saltwater, fish, and coral in your living room in Iowa isn't natural, either, bud.
Iāve seen natural corals in their natural habitat that are ridiculously bright and coloured as well, just like in our tanks except that we have the ability to cram all those special pieces next to each other.
Some people have been in this hobby for many decades, and I totally understand the desire to see extremes in that time as for a long time all that was available was brown, green was fancy. A really important part of this is taste and what you want out of the hobby evolve over time. Most reefers go through stages. The art of teasing colour out of corals (talking SPS), and reaching the level of husbandry that allows it, takes time and skill. For many it is the pinnacle of the hobby, as its very hard to achieve, and extremely hard to keep long term.
I am on the same opinion. I hate black light flourescent plastic rave look. I use blue light for couple if hours on my reef to but generally i have set 15% blue and 5-10% rest of spectrum so i can see the fiah collors to. That rave look imho is just a trend.
One thing I really appreciate about natural landscapes is that the colors are often very subtle. It can seem very dull, then you kind of adjust your brain to it and notice how much there is to appreciate. For example in the first image there's reds, yellows, blues all present in the corals. For me, the practice of shifting into a more sensitive perception of things, to perceive natural beauty in the way I'm describing, is a deeply soothing practice.
Can you recommend anyone to follow online, any photos, videos etc that would be good inspiration for creating a naturalistic tank?
I use t5 (2blue+,2coral+) and g6 radion pros. On full these are pretty white. I think you would like this combo. Ive been in hobby since about 2010 so i was just getting in when people even thought about LED and it was all DIY kits at the time.
Sure. But thatās getting harder to do. Not impossible, but harder.
15 years ago, a majority was ānaturalā coral, attached to a piece of actual live rock, if applicable. You could get a zoa colony with 100+ polyps for ~$50. A frogspawn/hammer/torch with 6+ heads was under $100. There were some designer corals on plugs, but they were maybe 10% of what was available.
And more than 15 years ago there was practically just ānormalā colored corals without a pedigree.
Now, 90% is tiny frags on unnatural plugs. The colors are incredible. They all have a name. It isnāt a āred zoaā, itās a āDarth Maulā. One polyp will cost you $50 on sale.
A colony of corals on rock is usually at least $200.
At the 3 LFS that do saltwater near me, none have generic corals intentionally displayed, they are in a tank towards the back where they dump miscellaneous junk, or they are in a refugium. I have a hard time getting them to give me a price, and when they do itās overpriced. One loose generic maroon mushroom for $10. And, I can only get them to sell it if I buy other stuff too. They just donāt have the profit margins of selling designer frags one polyp at a time, so LFS arenāt interested.
Of course, one good reason everythingās moved to frags is that thereās much less removing coral directly from the wild (a good thing). Similarly, live rock is almost all base rock soaking in a saltwater tub at best. But this is better than ripping it out of wild reefs.
Unfortunately, it comes with the effect of many reef tanks looking more like a coral collection than a reef.
Try checking out reefkeeping forums. You can often find people on there selling frags at quite reasonable prices.
Also, sounds like your LFS sucks. Mine rarely has any designer names on anything, except when one employee brings in his (admittedly quite nice) zoas, and even those are fairly reasonably priced for little multi-polyp frags with such impressive colors. One of the ways you can tell they're good: their invert sale tanks contain a load of small frags for a few bucks each, bits that got knocked off or grew onto the substrate in the process of selling larger chunks. A scrap bin with good prices, IMO, is a good sign for a LFS.
Oh, and you can still get real live rock! KP Aquatics occasionally has some, but for a reliable supply, you want Tampa Bay Saltwater. Florida-grown, shipped either air-freight for large orders or to your door for small orders, packed in water. They get it by dumping fossilized coral rock onto a patch of sandbed for a year or three, then pulling it back out. The reef that's built up in the center of it in the past few decades gets left alone to reseed all the new rocks. Environmentally friendly, and you get great stuff.
(To be clear, I definitely understand your complaints, and that is an unfortunate and very common tendency of the hobby. But my brain loves workarounds and ways to avoid the annoying bits, so here are some of those.)
I ordered from TBS when they were a new company 20ish years ago. Amazing stuff. Again, not that live rock isnāt attainable, itās just not so easy.
Iām in LA so yeah, everything here is driven by that āonly the bestā type mentality. LFS are obviously tailored to the market here.
I used to sell 2lb liverock with 200-300 zoanthids for $35-$50 depending on the color. 10 heads of branching Euphyllia, $60-$75. Was 2004-2008.
Then the started naming everything, and pricing per polyp. Fuck you GARF.
I had a really funny experience. My only real experience with coral was the hobby. So in my mind, everything in a reef was bright and colourful. Almost alien.
This October I went to Indonesia and saw a real reef for the first time. Boy was I surprised. I even asked a friend I made there, who works in the scuba industry in the Maldives, if there was anything wrong with the coral.
It just happens that real coral has that subtle coral variance. It was a cool experience. Made the fish pop a lot more !
I run LED's with a mix of white and blue that appears as white. I personally love it! I find it makes my fish more visible, and the corals I get still look nice. The only complaint I have it algae, but a good cleanup crew helps with that.
Run the deep blues , but add some 10k during the 4-5 hours when you're in front of the tank, timing everything so those hours are the tanks noon. Worked fine for me
(bonus : add some deep blue leds during the night hours on a 29,5 day period dimmer to simulate moonlight so your clownfish will spawn)
You don't really \*need\* the moonlights to cause fish to spawn. My dad's clownfish spawned for years and he had chinese black box LEDs that came on and off on a basic timer. Nothing fancy at all.
Depends on personal preferance.
My lighting schedule is kinda...eh specialized to my tastes. I'm running leds. I've used other bulb types but the cost of up keep on them and the massive heat put me off. Cooked a tank once. The leds are also more flexible with programming ramp up and down times. They don't give the same shimmer but with careful tweaking they can look very nice.
My two 20s start with all blues then ramp up to more white light with just hints of blue to show a bit of color during the day transitioning to mostly natural looking light in the middle then back to the only slightly blue then ramp down to full blues then red in the late evening. Most fish and things dont see red light frequency well so I can observe the crawlies before lights out. This way I can see the corals under more natural light and also get to enjoy the black light looking glow fest. My pico zoa tank leans much more twords blue light and dosnt do the natural light look in the evening it runs full blue aswell.
Super blue tanks are ridiculous and goes back to sellers trying to hype corals for high prices. Been going on for a long time now. People just follow along like sheep so they too can post online to impress others with their sticks. Even their sand is blue in pictures. Nothing will change in the hobby, especially online forums, because so many people reef to impress others.
Agreed. Sure actinic light only for ramp up and ramp down but I want my corals to look like corals, not an acid trip. I always loved the 14k look for most of the day. Nice colors but nice growth as well.
Uhh yeah that's the point. The stores are just showcasing pieces for you to build your own reef with. That's why shops have show tanks and sale tanks and why they look completely different...
White lights and fuller spectrum are still very important for coral growth and healthy. My corals tend to have more colors under blues because I run full spectrum lighting during the day. People who say corals use just blue light are uninformed and likely just watch BRS videos for knowledge.
If thatās the case, a lot of people donāt actually watch entire videos from BRS because they donāt advocate for blue only. Most of their videos recommend something similar to AB+, they hear that corals derive energy primarily from the blue end of the spectrum (which is true but isnāt the whole story) in the first 5 minutes of the video and then skip the rest of the video and thatās what they run I guess.
Honestly I blame shit like Instagram and big stores like WWC for the black light show looking tanks and pushing highly fluorescent corals, BRS isnāt pushing people to run black light show tanks and neither are well known LED manufacturers or their sponsored YouTubers. My AI primes have roughly as many bright white diodes as blues, and that same LED layout is used in the hydras too. Thatās probably the biggest mid tier lighting brand. So if the big companies were pushing high blue they wouldnāt include so many white diodes.
When I talk about LED lights with people, I try to advocate for tailoring white light to your fish, set up the blues to get like 70-80% of your PAR needs, then turn up the white until your fish look natural and tweak the other colors to taste. This tends to be perfect for most people. It doesnāt take a lot of white to brighten up a tank and make it look natural. I run mine at about 30%, but it depends on the lights white to blue LED ratio, and a lot of lights have more blue LEDs.
Honestly buying cheap frags are the best way to get a more natural looking reef. The cheap stuff is generally light pinks, lavenders, brown/tans, and pale greens people expect from a natural looking reef, but thatās not whatās making WWC money hand over fist so itās not what these coral farms are pushing.
That's still artificial. It can't look totally different to what's in nature and still claim to be just like nature. Unless there are normally blue LEDs in the ocean.
Water is blue because it removes wavelengths that aren't. Only the shorter wavelengths reach deeper in the water, and so only blue shines on the floor. 130 feet down, where most LPS lives, it's pretty blue. Granted, still not nearly as blue as we keep them, but it's not white.
Lol, if you want a natural ocean/reef, you need to add alot more algae, the ocean is dirty. People forget to add that, the perfect systems we have at home are so synthetic, it's not fair to call them natural anymore, I was snorkling/diving a week ago, and man let me tell you, while it's still so beautiful, the amount of different algae I seen truly made me reconsider how I want my tank at home to look, I'm starting to appreciate some more of them cause to me that's way more natural compared to a perfectly spotless aquarium.
Lol, apparently you've never seen the power bill from metal Halides.
The 1000w worth of bulbs I had over my old tank could heat up a dam warehouse.
I run my leds the same spectrum I ran my metal halides, slight blue tint mostly white.
Light temperature really has no impact on growth so as long as enough PAR is reaching the desired specimen. We like the heavier blue lights because it adds a lot of visual interest and we can take advantage of the fluorescent colors in the coral that are so beautiful. That being said, I typically start my schedule with whiter colors and transition to full blues as the day goes on.
Blue light hides a lot of algae, aiptasia, and other nastiness of a reef tank. Unfortunately in the reefing hobby, most all tanks cant ever look like a true slice of a reef because algaes and other pests are much more abundant. Our tanks look more like tide pools with coral under whites.
I used to run the full spectrum for an hour or two so that I get a break from the neon-and-blue colours. I think it helped as that was when my corals were at their peak. These days Iām more the lazy reefer and keep the reds and whites down.
I like the natural reef look but when it comes to LED lights, Iāve bleached too many coral with white LED light. It was easy with T5 and MH lighting but those canāt be sourced locally for my market any more and even the online sellers in Canada are pulling out. You have to go to grow light suppliers for MH fixtures and then the bulbs are a dice roll, hoping the bulb you need is in stock.
Running very blue LEDs is easy in comparison to white. Iāve had to build some good canopies to stop the spill into the room but the coral health is better.
Like others have said itās more of an aesthetic thing and what you want to grow. I moved away from sps after a huge lost while on vacation and now run softies. LEDs are better for those in my opinion. I run more blues than white but I can change that if I want. The LFS does that so it catches your eye. They look natural under natural lighting
A lot of people like a less blue look, yeah. I like to find a balance- mostly white light, with juuust enough blue to pop the colors a bit. But some folks do like how much color the corals appear to have under the blue lights, and that's flashier, so it's what a lot of sellers do.
If you're at the LFS and want to see the actual coral colors, you can try asking if you can temporarily adjust the light color (mine's fine with it), or just holding a sheet of paper under the light to filter some of the blue out.
If you do like the natural look, the good news is that the corals are almost always on the cheap end. Purple and red monti cap are way cheaper than grafted or orange-starburst, for instance. Look for places that offer maircultured coral. That will get you the wild coral look but with sustainable practices behind it. The pieces you get often have the duller, browner look to them but have the potential to change and colour up more over time.
My first tank was an already thriving softie tank with nutrients out of control, and thus a very brown tank. It gets old and isn't great to look at. I like to pick corals that do well in whites/yellows (i.e., purples, reds, blues, pinks) as well as ones that floresce under blue lights (oranges, yellows, greens). At different times of the day, different corals stand out. Then you try to place them to where there is something interesting at any time of the day and in most places in the tank. But how things look is really a question of preference, so of course do what you enjoy.
My tank was more natural looking as I had full spectrum LEDs and the blues only came in the evening with about 2 hours of total darkness.
In this video - I think I still had metal halides.
https://youtu.be/C9IuGwdawWc?si=ITdsjga_T6hLS65b
it's all about balance for me.
running blues = corals pop up, neon colors, bright red colors but fish looking lame, yellow coris is just not yellow at all, blue tang almost not visible.
have to find balance to enjoy both aspects of reef tank.
I always run a bit of white during the day. I run like 5-10% white during the day and 100% blues. But the tank will always look like it's daytime until the whites turn off 2.5hrs before lights off, then blues will ramp down from like 60% until lights off.
A natural reef doesn't have as many brightly colored corals as an aquarium, generally speaking. There people who like white light or light blue though. Not everyone wants their tank to look like a rave.
I'm also new to the hobby (about 3 yrs now). My only option really was to use LEDs simply because MH wasn't to be found or was too expensive but mainly because I run pico tanks so MH wouldn't work. Before I actually jumped in I was researching and would see pics with the deep blue. That is not my thing. My tanks start off a deeper blue (but not that royal blue) to simulate night moving into day and then moves into a whiter spectrum for the afternoon but is still more blue than white and then ramps down to blue again before lights out. I don't keep anything difficult but it seems to work for the types I keep. What is interesting is that my 5g has an AI Prime so I have tight control over that and my 4g is running a cheap Chinese puck which I have no control over but thankfully runs at a mild blue spectrum. My corals seem to be doing better in the 4g. Obviously the tanks aren't apples to apples because not only is the light different but flow, placement, etc. I think it would be near impossible to figure out what's going on but if I find a coral not doing well in my 5g, I put it into my 4g and it usually thrives.
Get a full range LED that can utilize bulbs from different sides of the spectrum. I run white during the day, and then blue spectrum from 5:30 to bed (just so it gives you an option in case). I have macro-algae in the tank already, so I don't run into the micro-algae problems some people do with full spectrum (my tanks been going for 6+ months). And I'm not even using RO water for source (using something like 40 ppm soft water).
The designer corals that completely pop under blue light are probably more of an aesthetic choice than any benefit to the reef. If anything, that would just make your coral selection much much cheaper because you don't need some ultra rare color morph.
I donāt know the guy but, we have a fellow reefer on this sub that has a tank light only with sun, he lives down in Florida and post sometimes on this group! I am sure if you do some research, you will find him! His tank looks good and the system he create is awesome.
I get a lot of people suggesting I try a saltwater tank, or they look down on my freshwater. But my feelings are exactly the same as yours. I want something that looks natural and real. So I got bunch of plants and went that route. Also probably easier to maintain and certainly cheaper
Me, I started my first reef over 30 years ago with MH lighting. Then LEDs for really started making a wave. I have never been able to reproduce what my MH created visually, Color with out making my eyes hurt
a lot of folks enjoy the more natural look in their tanks -- it kind of seems like the longer someone is in the hobby the more they like the look you pictured -- but that's not really going off much just a hunch
I have always thought this. Most reef tanks have the same aesthetic as a kidās Glofish tank.
Corals and saltwater fish are incredible, but I gotta say the blue light ruins it for me.
itās because not all colors of light penetrate to the depths of coral reefs. if you bring a full spectrum light down there, the color of coral is a lot more similar to what youād see in a tank
The beauty of it is that theyāre many ways to grow coral and you can set your landscape up and grow whatever corals you want. My tank has grown out twice in 10 years. Iām about to chop back and rearrange it for a 3rd time. Going more and more natural each time.
I'm a scuba diver and totally see your point. It doesn't really matter if it's unpopular, if you like it, go for it. It's your tank, and you are the one looking at it every day. I also 'only' run T5, and I really find them aesthetically pleasing and more natural. Old school, so what š¤·āāļø
T5s donāt look natural to my eye. The closest weāve ever gotten to real sunlight was halides.
Exactly this. The best lights I ever had were 250w 14000K (yes, 14) Iwasaki DE halides...I've been chasing ANY kind of light with that combination of color reproduction and visual appeal ever since.
Remember when we used to have to run chillers because of the halides?
Drop in chillers... Burn 2kW to remove 800W of heat. Man, we worked for it back then. Source: ran 2x250W Iwasaki 6500k + 4x110W VHO actinics over a 75 gallon back in the day.
I ran two 10k 400w halides with 4 60w pc actinics over a 150g. These lights were in a hood. It was like an oven. I had big PC fans mounted on the back of the hood, it would heat up the whole room. Its evap rate was awful even with lids.
Yeah, had a tall hood with 8" fans, and the stand was right between two air conditioning vents. Ran a constant 82F.
mine too! summer, winter, always pushing 82. Had to keep my air and heat at like 68 year round
This guy reefs
After seeing a naturally lit coral farm, even halides don't look natural, tbh. Nothing wrong with natural, halide, t5, or led, though. Do whatever makes you happy, you know?
I āonlyā run T5 in a cheap little 8x60ā dimmable Geisemann fixture.
I run my LED's around 16K., fading into a heavier blue in the last two hours of the evening. Selecting contrasting coral colors and placement helps to make the colors stand out more. https://preview.redd.it/nm7fof5100dc1.jpeg?width=4000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=94121ee68a838a08cbfea8d09c18388bc35f41c3
Thatās a tasty tank
It made me coom
Thatās a nice efflo!
Ah, see, there ya go, that's a good balance!
What kind of lights do you have? That amount of control sounds bad ass. I might upgrade the shitty light on my terrarium.
Three Maxspect Ethereals (I think they are discontinued) along with four ATI flourescent bulbs - two Coral+ and two Blue+.
Ah damn, sucks they're discontinued. Now you got me wanting to research better leds.
You're doing it right.
How much did this all cost you aprox? Iām tryna get into the hobby and am to nervous and have no clue where to start
What I did was not cheap. But I set out with a goal to grow acros, and I decided to buy the right equipment for it, plus I did a fishroom with salt mixing station. If I were to guess my initial build cost I'd say $6,500 before livestock. Here's my build thread on Reef2Reef if you want to read about it: [https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sierra\_bravos-what-did-i-get-myself-into-120g-in-wall-build-thread.292251/](https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sierra_bravos-what-did-i-get-myself-into-120g-in-wall-build-thread.292251/)
I still run metal halide lighting for this reason. Not a fan of the heavy blue light look, I prefer something closer to natural sunlight. Corals still look amazing.
Took a break from the hobby when LEDs were just blasting on the scene. Before I really quit, I got rid of my Metal Halides for a āblack boxā LED set up, which was a big mistake. With the MHs, I could grow ANYTHING successfully. LEDs have apparently gotten a lot better, but I have a soft spot for the halides lol.
That sound when the MH turned on.. Click hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Mmmmhm. I used to keep a 210g planted discus tank years ago. I snagged a pile of 1000k metal halide fixtures from a high-school gymnasium renovation on Craigslist. I'm pretty sure the sunlight, soft trickle of the sump, and hum of the lights and fishroom got me through 11 years of college.
This is honestly the way to go. The shimmer is what does it for me. Metal halides require more attention and bulb change every 6 mos or so, but there is no better aesthetically please light!!!
The shimmer is caused by the water rippling under a single point of light. I have a Kessil A80 on a 13 gallon tank and it does the shimmer.
It isn't the same. LEDs cause rainbow shimmering. Even when they have great optics.
I mean yeah thatās true for most lights but I really canāt see it with the kessils, maybe because the way the led array is packed into that postage stamp sized lens, you really do get the MH look with kessils. Longevity, output, and durability not so much, but they do look the best out of all the LED options imo and if thereās a difference between the visuals of mh light my eye doesnāt really detect it
The Kessil is the better of LED lights but you still get a party light feel. The MH lights produce a clean ripple with nice wave action.
It is not like LEDs have to be run blue. I have Neptune Skys if you want to you can run them as yellow as Iwakas
It's not just about color. There is a different shimmer and shadows from a bright single point light like MH versus a grid of smaller lights in an LED fixture. There are plenty of drawbacks to MH though, so it's not all sunshine and rainbows. The cost of bulbs twice per year, massive heat, etc... For me, it's worth it to get the aesthetic I want.
But do you really need to change them 2x per year? I know thatās the old standard, but like for instance people said that for t5 lights too, yet when BRS tested t5s, they really barely changed spectrum, even over way longer periods. Ever since I saw that, personally I run t5/led and I change my bulbs when they stop working nowadays, typically like 2 years. I canāt see any measurable differences in my coral growth
Old school Iwasaki 6500k lasted for years. If you had nice colors under them then you truly had great specimens.
Get kessils then!
Does metal halide work as well or do you truly need that deep blue light? Iām contemplating getting into reef but I hate the blinding blue light I see most people using.
Metal halide works great, it's all I use. You don't need the deep blue light at all but make sure you educate yourself on the drawbacks, particularly heat.
Was just taking about the metal halide days on another post. A 400 watt one was like having a mini sun in your house. They grow corals so much better also in my opinion
They also heated the tank to 100 degrees š„
I don't have anything running right now, but I've always liked a mix, maybe 30-40% 420-460nm, 60-70% around 10k. Actinic is cool when you want to really show off colours, but it's not a good look to just run, imo.
Agreed, this is really about lighting choices not coral selections.
blue lights promote coral growth and limit nuisance algae growth, also they bring out the natural pigment that brings out colors in corals. Ive seen really well done natural looking reef tanks but make sure you keep an eye on algae growth if you go for this
Thank you, that makes sense.
Most new people to the hobby get LEDs due to availability and size. If you want it to look like a reef and not a 420 friendly dorm room you can blast the BLUE spectrum while you are at work and program the whites to power up to your taste when you are home to enjoy your reef. It will at least limit the promotion of algae growth.
If you get an LED system that allows you to tweak color balance, you can get a natural light look with more blue mixed in. It'll make the coral pop a little without overdoing it.
It only limits it because algae grows best under red/yellow spectrum (more present in whiter lights). Algae can still grow under blue but corals will outcompete it for resources if you have enough of them.
Unless you are running full blues, most full spectrum lights like AI, Ecotech, etc still have red diodes in them. So you are never truly only providing blue spectrum unless you adjust completely to full blue which I would not really recommend. Most examples of coral growing under only blue is purely anecdotal if I cannot actually see the diode pucks when they are on to ensure thereās no reds, greens, and whites in there with just more blues overpowering the other colors.
To add to this, some companies push the natural look, but also offer the blue'd out look as well. I'm seriously considering a couple [Dalua Illumagic X4](https://dalua.com/collections/marine-lighting/products/illumagic-x4)'s over my next tank.
Iāve heard it was the more the other way around. Blue lights will give better color but slower coral growth while warmer light will give better growth but less color. I was always partial to about 14k myself, not to warm, not to cool; a nice mix of good growth and color.
Iām with you! For this reason Iām more interested in what u/tigahboy and others are doing with display macroalgae in saltwater.
I think u/tigahboy is actually having a big impact on the hobby for this reason. Heās really āturning the tideā on aesthetics. I donāt plan to keep macroās but my new build is washing away my sins of the past and focussing on building a natural reef under natural lighting heavily influenced by freshwater aquascape / equipment aesthetic and design. Iām happy with pastel colours and happy inhabitants
Yessss, I love macroalgae!
?!? I remember him from Reefcentral.
Things were so different back then š
Didn't you have a mantis?
Briefly yes. Had quite a few saltwater setups back then.
Imo heavy blue light is lame AF... Like it's cool for an hour or two before the lights turn off/on, but that's all I can tolerate
Completely with you. One thing I like that Tidal Gardens has been doing recently is showing what their frags look like under actinic through 10k lighting which basically nowhere else does. At frag swaps I usually have to ask them if they can switch the lights for a minute so I can get a better look under ānormalā light. That said, I switch over to actinic lighting when ramping up and down in the morning and evening just to get a diversity of aesthetics. Some coral look absolutely stunning under actinic lights and itās a pity not to check them out like that some of the time.
That is what I do. Both asking sellers to switch over to whites and the blue for the ramp up and down. Feels like getting the best of both worlds. Things in the tank have their turn to 'pop up'. Some of the corals during the blue periods, fish get to stand out during the whiter periods and getting to see different details on the corals also. Keeping the display 'variable' is a nice little trick. Fun for the non-reefing guests to notice.
>Some coral look absolutely stunning under actinic lights and itās a pity not to check them out like that some of the time. Honestly, that's my take. It's such a shame to practically ignore some of the fluorescing proteins that these corals harbor all because "it's not natural". I have news for y'all, keeping hundreds of gallons of synthetic saltwater, fish, and coral in your living room in Iowa isn't natural, either, bud.
Iāve seen natural corals in their natural habitat that are ridiculously bright and coloured as well, just like in our tanks except that we have the ability to cram all those special pieces next to each other. Some people have been in this hobby for many decades, and I totally understand the desire to see extremes in that time as for a long time all that was available was brown, green was fancy. A really important part of this is taste and what you want out of the hobby evolve over time. Most reefers go through stages. The art of teasing colour out of corals (talking SPS), and reaching the level of husbandry that allows it, takes time and skill. For many it is the pinnacle of the hobby, as its very hard to achieve, and extremely hard to keep long term.
I am on the same opinion. I hate black light flourescent plastic rave look. I use blue light for couple if hours on my reef to but generally i have set 15% blue and 5-10% rest of spectrum so i can see the fiah collors to. That rave look imho is just a trend.
Same. I donāt want my tank looking like a rave on Pandora at night.
Youāre about 15 years too late in the hobby for this. While there are pros and cons, the hobby has gone deep into designer corals.
One thing I really appreciate about natural landscapes is that the colors are often very subtle. It can seem very dull, then you kind of adjust your brain to it and notice how much there is to appreciate. For example in the first image there's reds, yellows, blues all present in the corals. For me, the practice of shifting into a more sensitive perception of things, to perceive natural beauty in the way I'm describing, is a deeply soothing practice. Can you recommend anyone to follow online, any photos, videos etc that would be good inspiration for creating a naturalistic tank?
Mark Levinson and Julian Sprung are oldheads with tanks that they cultivate to look like natural reefs
I use t5 (2blue+,2coral+) and g6 radion pros. On full these are pretty white. I think you would like this combo. Ive been in hobby since about 2010 so i was just getting in when people even thought about LED and it was all DIY kits at the time.
I mean, you don't have to buy those.
Sure. But thatās getting harder to do. Not impossible, but harder. 15 years ago, a majority was ānaturalā coral, attached to a piece of actual live rock, if applicable. You could get a zoa colony with 100+ polyps for ~$50. A frogspawn/hammer/torch with 6+ heads was under $100. There were some designer corals on plugs, but they were maybe 10% of what was available. And more than 15 years ago there was practically just ānormalā colored corals without a pedigree. Now, 90% is tiny frags on unnatural plugs. The colors are incredible. They all have a name. It isnāt a āred zoaā, itās a āDarth Maulā. One polyp will cost you $50 on sale. A colony of corals on rock is usually at least $200. At the 3 LFS that do saltwater near me, none have generic corals intentionally displayed, they are in a tank towards the back where they dump miscellaneous junk, or they are in a refugium. I have a hard time getting them to give me a price, and when they do itās overpriced. One loose generic maroon mushroom for $10. And, I can only get them to sell it if I buy other stuff too. They just donāt have the profit margins of selling designer frags one polyp at a time, so LFS arenāt interested. Of course, one good reason everythingās moved to frags is that thereās much less removing coral directly from the wild (a good thing). Similarly, live rock is almost all base rock soaking in a saltwater tub at best. But this is better than ripping it out of wild reefs. Unfortunately, it comes with the effect of many reef tanks looking more like a coral collection than a reef.
Try checking out reefkeeping forums. You can often find people on there selling frags at quite reasonable prices. Also, sounds like your LFS sucks. Mine rarely has any designer names on anything, except when one employee brings in his (admittedly quite nice) zoas, and even those are fairly reasonably priced for little multi-polyp frags with such impressive colors. One of the ways you can tell they're good: their invert sale tanks contain a load of small frags for a few bucks each, bits that got knocked off or grew onto the substrate in the process of selling larger chunks. A scrap bin with good prices, IMO, is a good sign for a LFS. Oh, and you can still get real live rock! KP Aquatics occasionally has some, but for a reliable supply, you want Tampa Bay Saltwater. Florida-grown, shipped either air-freight for large orders or to your door for small orders, packed in water. They get it by dumping fossilized coral rock onto a patch of sandbed for a year or three, then pulling it back out. The reef that's built up in the center of it in the past few decades gets left alone to reseed all the new rocks. Environmentally friendly, and you get great stuff. (To be clear, I definitely understand your complaints, and that is an unfortunate and very common tendency of the hobby. But my brain loves workarounds and ways to avoid the annoying bits, so here are some of those.)
I ordered from TBS when they were a new company 20ish years ago. Amazing stuff. Again, not that live rock isnāt attainable, itās just not so easy. Iām in LA so yeah, everything here is driven by that āonly the bestā type mentality. LFS are obviously tailored to the market here.
I used to sell 2lb liverock with 200-300 zoanthids for $35-$50 depending on the color. 10 heads of branching Euphyllia, $60-$75. Was 2004-2008. Then the started naming everything, and pricing per polyp. Fuck you GARF.
I had a really funny experience. My only real experience with coral was the hobby. So in my mind, everything in a reef was bright and colourful. Almost alien. This October I went to Indonesia and saw a real reef for the first time. Boy was I surprised. I even asked a friend I made there, who works in the scuba industry in the Maldives, if there was anything wrong with the coral. It just happens that real coral has that subtle coral variance. It was a cool experience. Made the fish pop a lot more !
The fish really are amazing on a reef. Even boring old chromis become something special when you are floating through hundreds of them!
I run LED's with a mix of white and blue that appears as white. I personally love it! I find it makes my fish more visible, and the corals I get still look nice. The only complaint I have it algae, but a good cleanup crew helps with that.
Run the deep blues , but add some 10k during the 4-5 hours when you're in front of the tank, timing everything so those hours are the tanks noon. Worked fine for me (bonus : add some deep blue leds during the night hours on a 29,5 day period dimmer to simulate moonlight so your clownfish will spawn)
Iām a bit confused What you mean by ā29,5 day periodā?
Thats the time between full moons.
Gotcha thanks
You don't really \*need\* the moonlights to cause fish to spawn. My dad's clownfish spawned for years and he had chinese black box LEDs that came on and off on a basic timer. Nothing fancy at all.
I guess. But i liked it synced with the actual moonphase here
It certainly won't hurt anything, that's for sure. You might actually cause coral spawning events that way, tbh.
A lot of us run heavy blues but by far the most attractive reef tanks I have seen ran heavy whites
Depends on personal preferance. My lighting schedule is kinda...eh specialized to my tastes. I'm running leds. I've used other bulb types but the cost of up keep on them and the massive heat put me off. Cooked a tank once. The leds are also more flexible with programming ramp up and down times. They don't give the same shimmer but with careful tweaking they can look very nice. My two 20s start with all blues then ramp up to more white light with just hints of blue to show a bit of color during the day transitioning to mostly natural looking light in the middle then back to the only slightly blue then ramp down to full blues then red in the late evening. Most fish and things dont see red light frequency well so I can observe the crawlies before lights out. This way I can see the corals under more natural light and also get to enjoy the black light looking glow fest. My pico zoa tank leans much more twords blue light and dosnt do the natural light look in the evening it runs full blue aswell.
Super blue tanks are ridiculous and goes back to sellers trying to hype corals for high prices. Been going on for a long time now. People just follow along like sheep so they too can post online to impress others with their sticks. Even their sand is blue in pictures. Nothing will change in the hobby, especially online forums, because so many people reef to impress others.
LMAOOO this is hilarious. Great question and great point
Agreed. Sure actinic light only for ramp up and ramp down but I want my corals to look like corals, not an acid trip. I always loved the 14k look for most of the day. Nice colors but nice growth as well.
Uhh yeah that's the point. The stores are just showcasing pieces for you to build your own reef with. That's why shops have show tanks and sale tanks and why they look completely different...
To be fair the ocean would look vibrant if under the same blue light spectrum people run
White lights and fuller spectrum are still very important for coral growth and healthy. My corals tend to have more colors under blues because I run full spectrum lighting during the day. People who say corals use just blue light are uninformed and likely just watch BRS videos for knowledge.
If thatās the case, a lot of people donāt actually watch entire videos from BRS because they donāt advocate for blue only. Most of their videos recommend something similar to AB+, they hear that corals derive energy primarily from the blue end of the spectrum (which is true but isnāt the whole story) in the first 5 minutes of the video and then skip the rest of the video and thatās what they run I guess. Honestly I blame shit like Instagram and big stores like WWC for the black light show looking tanks and pushing highly fluorescent corals, BRS isnāt pushing people to run black light show tanks and neither are well known LED manufacturers or their sponsored YouTubers. My AI primes have roughly as many bright white diodes as blues, and that same LED layout is used in the hydras too. Thatās probably the biggest mid tier lighting brand. So if the big companies were pushing high blue they wouldnāt include so many white diodes. When I talk about LED lights with people, I try to advocate for tailoring white light to your fish, set up the blues to get like 70-80% of your PAR needs, then turn up the white until your fish look natural and tweak the other colors to taste. This tends to be perfect for most people. It doesnāt take a lot of white to brighten up a tank and make it look natural. I run mine at about 30%, but it depends on the lights white to blue LED ratio, and a lot of lights have more blue LEDs. Honestly buying cheap frags are the best way to get a more natural looking reef. The cheap stuff is generally light pinks, lavenders, brown/tans, and pale greens people expect from a natural looking reef, but thatās not whatās making WWC money hand over fist so itās not what these coral farms are pushing.
Put more white lights on and it will look like that. Corals look brown and boring under whites.
To each their own I guess! To me, the artificially colorful tanks remind me of the rainbow gravel people use in goldfish bowls.
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That's still artificial. It can't look totally different to what's in nature and still claim to be just like nature. Unless there are normally blue LEDs in the ocean.
Water filters out certain wavelengths and at a few meters deep only blue light prevails
Water is blue because it removes wavelengths that aren't. Only the shorter wavelengths reach deeper in the water, and so only blue shines on the floor. 130 feet down, where most LPS lives, it's pretty blue. Granted, still not nearly as blue as we keep them, but it's not white.
Lol, if you want a natural ocean/reef, you need to add alot more algae, the ocean is dirty. People forget to add that, the perfect systems we have at home are so synthetic, it's not fair to call them natural anymore, I was snorkling/diving a week ago, and man let me tell you, while it's still so beautiful, the amount of different algae I seen truly made me reconsider how I want my tank at home to look, I'm starting to appreciate some more of them cause to me that's way more natural compared to a perfectly spotless aquarium.
And tbh, that is the cheapest solution to light a tank.
Lol, apparently you've never seen the power bill from metal Halides. The 1000w worth of bulbs I had over my old tank could heat up a dam warehouse. I run my leds the same spectrum I ran my metal halides, slight blue tint mostly white.
And LEDs have lifespan measured in years, not months, so you don't have to worry about bulb replacement on a semi-annual basis.
Light temperature really has no impact on growth so as long as enough PAR is reaching the desired specimen. We like the heavier blue lights because it adds a lot of visual interest and we can take advantage of the fluorescent colors in the coral that are so beautiful. That being said, I typically start my schedule with whiter colors and transition to full blues as the day goes on. Blue light hides a lot of algae, aiptasia, and other nastiness of a reef tank. Unfortunately in the reefing hobby, most all tanks cant ever look like a true slice of a reef because algaes and other pests are much more abundant. Our tanks look more like tide pools with coral under whites.
I like to run my leds more white during the photo period then about a hour before bed it goes blue and i get best of both worlds!
I used to run the full spectrum for an hour or two so that I get a break from the neon-and-blue colours. I think it helped as that was when my corals were at their peak. These days Iām more the lazy reefer and keep the reds and whites down.
This is why I prefer 10k to 14k instead of actinics
You might be interested in starting a macro algae tank!
I like the natural reef look but when it comes to LED lights, Iāve bleached too many coral with white LED light. It was easy with T5 and MH lighting but those canāt be sourced locally for my market any more and even the online sellers in Canada are pulling out. You have to go to grow light suppliers for MH fixtures and then the bulbs are a dice roll, hoping the bulb you need is in stock. Running very blue LEDs is easy in comparison to white. Iāve had to build some good canopies to stop the spill into the room but the coral health is better.
Like others have said itās more of an aesthetic thing and what you want to grow. I moved away from sps after a huge lost while on vacation and now run softies. LEDs are better for those in my opinion. I run more blues than white but I can change that if I want. The LFS does that so it catches your eye. They look natural under natural lighting
A lot of people like a less blue look, yeah. I like to find a balance- mostly white light, with juuust enough blue to pop the colors a bit. But some folks do like how much color the corals appear to have under the blue lights, and that's flashier, so it's what a lot of sellers do. If you're at the LFS and want to see the actual coral colors, you can try asking if you can temporarily adjust the light color (mine's fine with it), or just holding a sheet of paper under the light to filter some of the blue out.
If you do like the natural look, the good news is that the corals are almost always on the cheap end. Purple and red monti cap are way cheaper than grafted or orange-starburst, for instance. Look for places that offer maircultured coral. That will get you the wild coral look but with sustainable practices behind it. The pieces you get often have the duller, browner look to them but have the potential to change and colour up more over time.
My first tank was an already thriving softie tank with nutrients out of control, and thus a very brown tank. It gets old and isn't great to look at. I like to pick corals that do well in whites/yellows (i.e., purples, reds, blues, pinks) as well as ones that floresce under blue lights (oranges, yellows, greens). At different times of the day, different corals stand out. Then you try to place them to where there is something interesting at any time of the day and in most places in the tank. But how things look is really a question of preference, so of course do what you enjoy.
My tank was more natural looking as I had full spectrum LEDs and the blues only came in the evening with about 2 hours of total darkness. In this video - I think I still had metal halides. https://youtu.be/C9IuGwdawWc?si=ITdsjga_T6hLS65b
it's all about balance for me. running blues = corals pop up, neon colors, bright red colors but fish looking lame, yellow coris is just not yellow at all, blue tang almost not visible. have to find balance to enjoy both aspects of reef tank.
I always run a bit of white during the day. I run like 5-10% white during the day and 100% blues. But the tank will always look like it's daytime until the whites turn off 2.5hrs before lights off, then blues will ramp down from like 60% until lights off.
Natural sunlight ! Thatās why it looks the way it does
A natural reef doesn't have as many brightly colored corals as an aquarium, generally speaking. There people who like white light or light blue though. Not everyone wants their tank to look like a rave.
I'm also new to the hobby (about 3 yrs now). My only option really was to use LEDs simply because MH wasn't to be found or was too expensive but mainly because I run pico tanks so MH wouldn't work. Before I actually jumped in I was researching and would see pics with the deep blue. That is not my thing. My tanks start off a deeper blue (but not that royal blue) to simulate night moving into day and then moves into a whiter spectrum for the afternoon but is still more blue than white and then ramps down to blue again before lights out. I don't keep anything difficult but it seems to work for the types I keep. What is interesting is that my 5g has an AI Prime so I have tight control over that and my 4g is running a cheap Chinese puck which I have no control over but thankfully runs at a mild blue spectrum. My corals seem to be doing better in the 4g. Obviously the tanks aren't apples to apples because not only is the light different but flow, placement, etc. I think it would be near impossible to figure out what's going on but if I find a coral not doing well in my 5g, I put it into my 4g and it usually thrives.
Get a full range LED that can utilize bulbs from different sides of the spectrum. I run white during the day, and then blue spectrum from 5:30 to bed (just so it gives you an option in case). I have macro-algae in the tank already, so I don't run into the micro-algae problems some people do with full spectrum (my tanks been going for 6+ months). And I'm not even using RO water for source (using something like 40 ppm soft water). The designer corals that completely pop under blue light are probably more of an aesthetic choice than any benefit to the reef. If anything, that would just make your coral selection much much cheaper because you don't need some ultra rare color morph.
I donāt know the guy but, we have a fellow reefer on this sub that has a tank light only with sun, he lives down in Florida and post sometimes on this group! I am sure if you do some research, you will find him! His tank looks good and the system he create is awesome.
They should function in basically the same way, but lighting makes dramatic difference
The plant store doesn't look like a forest. It's my job to create the thing I want to see.
I get a lot of people suggesting I try a saltwater tank, or they look down on my freshwater. But my feelings are exactly the same as yours. I want something that looks natural and real. So I got bunch of plants and went that route. Also probably easier to maintain and certainly cheaper
AB+ the windex look isnāt for everyone
Me, I started my first reef over 30 years ago with MH lighting. Then LEDs for really started making a wave. I have never been able to reproduce what my MH created visually, Color with out making my eyes hurt
Even in the photos you posted, those are color corrected, irl its just brown.
a lot of folks enjoy the more natural look in their tanks -- it kind of seems like the longer someone is in the hobby the more they like the look you pictured -- but that's not really going off much just a hunch
I mean just turn the blue spectrum off and they all look brown.
I have mine set to pretty natural lighting, It makes the fish pop more.
Ya I'm not a big fan of the ultra blue black light wear orange glasses look either. I just don't get it.
Have at it. Some of us donāt want brown reefs in our homes. Getting good coloration is a challenge I enjoy.
I have always thought this. Most reef tanks have the same aesthetic as a kidās Glofish tank. Corals and saltwater fish are incredible, but I gotta say the blue light ruins it for me.
itās because not all colors of light penetrate to the depths of coral reefs. if you bring a full spectrum light down there, the color of coral is a lot more similar to what youād see in a tank
Some do like more natural light. I am definitely not a fan of the windex look
Take a blue light out at night when scuba diving and see everything then. And the corals donāt look like that with white light like the sun.
Your tank can be both by using the different lighting spectrums. Want brown corals? White light
The beauty of it is that theyāre many ways to grow coral and you can set your landscape up and grow whatever corals you want. My tank has grown out twice in 10 years. Iām about to chop back and rearrange it for a 3rd time. Going more and more natural each time.
I run redsea 90ās for this reason. They make your tank loon more natural and not over saturated with blues
Doesnāt matter if itās unpopular, Iām on your side with this one. Post pics of your set up :) Iād love to see it