T5 or led

[Fireman cole]

I am setting up a frag tank i and runing led on my display tanks but i have heard corals do better under t5 and was wondering what would be better on my frog tank thanks

[Sascha D.]

It would be best to run your frag tank with the same type of lighting as your display. The reason is so that you don't have to photo adjust freshly cut frags that come out of the display tank. It's also worth mentioning that the fragmented corals may change color from the mother colony under different lighting conditions.

[Timfish]

+1

[Bpb]

Agreed whatever you choose match frag tank and display. The led vs everything else comes down to personal experience and application. Some people can effectively use LEDs, and others fall short. Rest assured of you have quality units and enough of them, but aren't getting results, it's likely user error

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[+FluxCapacitor]

I had a super cool acan that had green purple orange and white in it that turned mostly orange. You can still see the other colors when it shrinks a bit at night and when the LEDs change over to actinic in the night time.... but during the day when the 6500k spectrum is running it just looks mostly orange.

I definitely think this is due to the place I got it from using T5 lighting and my tank using LED lighting. The coral still looks good but it definitely changed a bit in color.

[Timfish]

I would try finding out the PAR levels used with the T5s. The spectrum between the different lighting technologies does affect the corals even changing the microstructure of the skeletons. The chromo and fluorescing proteins a corals make will shift or change depending on spectrum and intensity. White is usually tied directly to intensity as it's blocking all the visible wavelengths. For orange fluorescing proteins you need green light (a function of the "stokes shift" of fluorescing proteins, search articles by Dana Riddle). For orange chromo proteins you need orange wavelengths. Strong blue light stimulates green fluorescing protein (GFP) and can override or "may" completely shut down production of other coloring proteins (this is a potential issue with LEDs as there's a hidden blue component to white LEDs) . Purple is usually a combination of blue and red chromo proteins so the light source needs to provide both ranges for purple to to be displayed.

The genotype of a coral has a tremendous amount to do with coloring. Some corals can only make a few fluorescing or chromo proteins, others have the genes to make dozens of different proteins depending on lighting and environmental variables.

[+FluxCapacitor]

Wow Timfish, that is very cool information.

What would you say is the optimal combination of lighting that will achieve the most diverse coloring? Is it just a combination of the above spectrums or something else?

[Timfish]

Sorry, just noticed your question. I see on another thread you've got your lights already set but I like fixtures around 12,000K. I really don't bother much with sunset/sunrises but it you like it go for it. Once you get your lights set though I would not change them when you get new animals. Changing the spectrum will force your new animals to adjust to new lighting conditions and that has the potential to change colors.