biocube 32 custom lighting for better coral coloration.

Flatlower · Jan 27, 2024

I've had my new bio cube for year and half. With 2 extra 9 watt stripes royal blue from 21 leds. I have them at 65% strength to encourage coralline and coral growth. Plus blue light and oem lights together decent. I have great growth rates. Phenomenal growth rate of stones lps and sps.

However my coral color don't pop like they do at my Local fish store. I'm not getting super coloration when i get them home. It's more dull and the actinics just don't make the color pop.

What would be a good upgrade for lighting? Kessel 360? Radion?

My new rainbow monti is exploding but never looks as vibrate as it did at the LGS. It tries but it's like color spectrum isn't there.

Thanks for any input.

spielco · Jan 28, 2024

Gonna follow this. I’m currently with the stock hood and was planning to do the 21usa strips like your self. The videos and pictures I’ve seen had a lot of beautiful color to them so now I’m intrigued to see what others are seeing.

Imo id rather remove the hood and throw a kessil 360x on it and know I’m good to go for the future on out but I’m trying to keep a little bit of a budget and my corals seem to be plenty happy at the moment.

kevgib67 · Jan 28, 2024

I seem to get good color pop with the similar set up. I only run full whites 5 hours and colors are washed out during those 5 hours . Check out Steve’s led upgrade, I read great things about them, come ina BioCube hood , much more par but Im not sure about the affect on color.

kevgib67 · Jan 28, 2024

spielco said:
Gonna follow this. I’m currently with the stock hood and was planning to do the 21usa strips like your self. The videos and pictures I’ve seen had a lot of beautiful color to them so now I’m intrigued to see what others are seeing.

Imo id rather remove the hood and throw a kessil 360x on it and know I’m good to go for the future on out but I’m trying to keep a little bit of a budget and my corals seem to be plenty happy at the moment.

Where about are you at @spielco ?

littlefoxx · Jan 28, 2024

This is the reason I hate my biocube… Im going to try my AI light on mine and pull the hood off. It stopped working like 2 months in.

spielco · Jan 28, 2024

kevgib67 said:
Where about are you at @spielco ?

Over in Lima, OH

spielco · Jan 28, 2024

littlefoxx said:
This is the reason I hate my biocube… Im going to try my AI light on mine and pull the hood off. It stopped working like 2 months in.

That’s rough. It just completely quit on you!?

I guess all the reason to upgrade now lol