lets talk about bulb temp and SPS growth

[Detritivore]

im so torn!!!

bluer tanks look waay cool, but i also want good growth (no, not good, excellent)...yea, i know you can get good color and ok to good growth with the 14K bulbs, but i want the growth of a 10K! why is it that lower temp bulbs have more par, even though par is present in the whole spectrum? why dont they make a bulb that looks like a radium but has the par of an iwasaki??? ...sorry, i must be dreaming again....

[bogg]

I just do both 10 and 20 looks cool

[keigo]

i just use iwasaki 6.5kk all the way.. alot may find it too yellow..but i'm ok with it... and growth and coloring is great..

[Orion76]

why is it that lower temp bulbs have more par, even though par is present in the whole spectrum? why dont they make a bulb that looks like a radium but has the par of an iwasaki???

P.A.R. = Photosynthetically Active Radiation, the light in the spectrum used by plants 400-700nm.

Simply put, full spectrum bulbs have more of it and a bulb giving off blue light is not a full spectrum bulb. A blue bulb does not have more light in the blue range, it has less light in the yellow to red range so they appear blue. As the yellow to red range is more photosynthetically active, the yellow looking bulbs will always have more PAR than blue bulbs of the same wattage. A blue bulb basically puts out an incomplete light spectrum making them less useful for photosynthesis.

[thrlride]

What about the Phoenix 14k's? They seem to have great PAR while still being on the blue side...