Natural look or crazy colours?

[nishant3789]

sooo obviously most poeple seem to go with the high kelvin rated bulbs. personally i really like a tank that really looks like a slice of the ocean which generally has a bit whiter light around 10000K with minimal actinic supplementation. what do you guys think?

 

[vettesarebest]

I like a full grown tank that looks like a natural reef but the "color" of the light doesn't really matter to me. Different reefs and different depths have different "colors". I like a lot of caves and holes.

 

[siege]

While I like the looks of my tank when the actinics are on, and the looks of many display tanks with all their fancy lighting setups, one of my goals for my tnak is to have it looks really nice under fairly standard lighting, I.E., 1x96w Actinic, 1x96w 10kK, 36" power-compact fluorescents. We're currently working on an LED design that, in the end, we hope to able to modify the total out K equivalents on the fly with a built-in controller (within certain reasonable ranges, that is) and/or by replacing "banks" of modular LED arrays. Regardless, I think the "blue tanks" are awesome looking, but I'd rather get mine looking nice under the best possible approximation of natural lighting at depth roughly median to where all the stuff in my tank is naturally found.

 

[darren24]

I say that since you have to look at it the most design the tank around how you like it. It is like buying corals / fish. I see posts all of the time saying "Is this worth x amount of dollars". My answer is always it is worth it if you like and want it. I have been scuba diving several times and there is clearly a blue tint when you are down there.

 

[nishant3789]

true, you do get a bluer tint, but alot of the coral we buy, acropora and montipora, etc. grow in the shallow water reefs which if you go scuba diving there, has only a slightly bluish tint, not the nearly actinic colours of 20,000k bulbs. again yeah i know its personal preferance, thats why i started the thread!
nishant