The fact about Actinic Lighting. A must ?

Recently , I have been hearing from too many reefers advising others the basic lighting requirement as such " you must have 2 white tubes , 2 actinic blue tubes"
Juz hope that those guyzs out there change their concept that it is in fact not a must to have actinic lighting for a tank. Actinic Blue is used for the following reason:

1) Asethetic purpose (to bring out the flourescent pigment colouration tat trick yr eyes to buy them)
2) For those using MH , or 6500K tubes to correct the yellowness looks on the tank.
3) To create a deep water effect in the tank.
In fact , research in US revealed that actinic blue (420nm) does not help the corals in Photosynthesis (will pin up source here when i traced it back) .

Most corals in fact thrive on White spectrum , but those that were found deep deep deep below the ocean ( an article that suggested 50-60 ft below) have learnt to adapt to the blue spectrum cos other spectrum would have been filtered out at that depth. Corals that we have in our tank have little chances of been collected at that depth , with exception of certain class like Elegance coral that were reported to be collected at near darkness environment.

Another interesting discussion, i always hear from reefers discussing w/o fail is " what is the true colour of the coral." If i were to answer this qns , my ans would be " Brown or Golden Brown for photosynthetic LPS , orange for carnation , yellow,black pink for Sun Corals, red for carnation softies.
am always thinking how does one define the true colour for corals? the colour under white light? Or the colour under blue light? Corals are constantly adapting to environment and morphing in reaction to temp , lighting , nutrient levels..how is one going to define a true colour? For instance ,bro LVcap had one yuma that used to be green, started to morph into pink, will u define green or pink to be the true colour?
Just because humans are used to living under white spectrum , anything under white light will be defined as true colour? If the sun had emitted blue spectrum instead , would you classify anything under blue as true colour then and white as non-true?
Am prepared for Firing squad after this. . . juz my thoughts or have i bored u out?

a useful statement there. I am sure it will bring us to be more aware in our relentless quest for the 'perfect' reef tank.

i agree...a coral will adapt to its environment...even if one buys the coral cos of it colour..theres no garantee it will remain the same colouration in one's tank...even a dull brown coloured coral can change into a very colourful one...

cheers

Originally Posted by decentkid

i agree...a coral will adapt to its environment...even if one buys the coral cos of it colour..theres no garantee it will remain the same colouration in one's tank...even a dull brown coloured coral can change into a very colourful one...

cheers

Agree...

quite true. but then again u can never have nice coloration for corals, using 6500k. esp for sps...