Review of Coralvue 10K 400Watt bulb

[michaelg]

I wrote a while back that I was going to give one of these babies a whirl.  There has been a lot written on 250W bulbs as of late.  From my experience- you can not necessarily compare across wattages so here goes.

 

Scenario- old ushio 10K bulb (14 months) under a diamond lumenarcIII reflector (small footprint).  Bulb replaced with a coralvue 10K 400W bulb purchased from tridacnareef.com for $55 or so.  No change in photo period was done (12 hrs/day).

Below is purely annecdotal- and my observations only....

Day one- wow this bulb is both bright and really enhances the colors of the corals- on for 2 hrs from time of replacement till lights out.

Day two- WOW- this thing seems like a winner- coral colors are really enhanced.

Day four- sh*t- bleaching.  Many of the corals at the upper 1/2 of the tank.  Hmm...did I do something weird last night.  Change carbon.

Day five- bleaching is real.  Cut back on photo period of halide to 6 hrs/day.  Actinics run full 14.

Day seven.  Bleaching is recovering.  Have a little time to really look at what has happened here finally.  Seems top surfaces of corals (laying horizontal) are most affected.  Some fully bleached along these surfaces.  Start to increase feeding daily and babying them in hopes of recovery.  At no point were signs of shutdown reaction or RTN observed.

Day 10- New colony added.  Put on the sand, but center front.

Day 17- Some corals still bleached on horizontal surfaces.  All corals at the bottom and sides look better than prior the switch. New colony blueing only at tips.  Other colonies at top starting to blue as well.  Fully bleached areas haven't recovered yet, but are showing no signs of algae growth (can see polyps on some, not others).  Moved a table acropora over to the side to help it recover hopefully.

Day 25 or so- most corals are recovering and showing coloration unlike I have ever seen with the ushio bulb.  Blues are real strong as are the greens.  Polyp coloration is where I notice it the strongest.  The newest colony is really coloring up (not bad for a $40 huge mutha) with blue tip, and green polyps on the tips.

not sure if the table is going to make it- though I am sure frags can be salvaged- the top portion that got burned is sliming a lot now.

Continuing with feeding-  I have observed that the corals do eat cyclopeeze.  Marine Scene sells it, and I would highly recommend it as part of the feeding regime.  That said, we can always buy a couple blocks right before the next meeting.  I can store it at work and pack on dry ice.  The shipping was minimal on the last order that was huge with all the blocks of mysis shrimp (another super great buy for food).  

 

In all- these bulbs seem super bright.  Coloration is great- just a tinge bluer than an ushio 10K.  I should have cut back on the photo period from day one.  Don't think I will totally lose anything,

but  won't know for a while.  Seems like this bulb has a lot of potential.

[Gatortailale]

Thanks for update.

 

I'm trying the 250w 10 ushio on blueline ballast.

 

Day 1 - I was thinking wow, real bright

day 5 - I was thinking hmmmm, not looking so bright, maybe made mistake.

day 21 - thinking, I made a good call - blue tips showing up on corals, colors coming back that were faded on old bulbs.

 

2 1/2 months - awesome blue tips on lots of corals; good if not better color I had in corals when 10k ushio's were new.

 

Opinion, so far they are just as good as the ushio bulb; far superior than the AB 10k bulb.  I had 3 10k ab's, all on blueline ballast, and each had a different color tone (one yellow, one on the blue side, & one crisp white)  The XM's are consistent in the fact that they both look the same.  

 

I also set up a 120 and installed a 400w bulb in center of my 125.  At first I tried the 2 250w xm-10k's on ends and 400w 10k xm in middle, but the 400w 10k was so bright and yellow vs' the 2 250's it looked funny to my eye.  I have since picked up at last meeting, a XM 400w 20k and after about 100 + hours, it has a nice crisp blue/white light and looks decent, in my opinion with the xm 10k's on the ends - coral loves it so far - blue/ purple frag from Dr. Mac that is under the 400 20k now deep purple and showing blue tips & vareefman blue mont. cap. starting to get the blue / purple it was when he had it under 400w 20 radiums.  Need another month or 2 to see if xm will make it look similar to radium.

 

HTH

Craig

[michaelg]

edited today for the latest.

[quazi]

Michael,

 

I am in for the food buy.  Let us know the details.

[michaelg]

I'll start a seperate thread for the food buy.