Why are PC's so yellow?

[Anonymous]

I can't see myself lasting too long with these PC lights I put on my reef. Time to save up for the halides.

These are just too yellow for my tastes...why is that?

Peace,

Chip

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
What type? For PC, you have to get ~8700K to get them really blue...

 

[Anonymous]

Two fixtures, 260 watts each, 48" long.

Each fixture has one 10K white and one actinic.

Peace,

Chip

 

[Anonymous]

Are you sure they are 10K?

How old are the bulbs?

My 10k are White. I had 6700 (I think) that were yellowish.
_________________
Foot Problems Forum

 

[Robin Goodfellow]

hi.
Ditto what Rob_Reef_Keeper ask.

No matter how old are the bulb, there is no way for a 10K to be yellowish unless it is covered with grease and dirty and stain.

 

[Saltykirk]

Might check to make sure 10K stickers were not put on 6700K bulbs. I ran 6700K w/ 2 full actinics and the overall color was nice. W/ PC's you will notice a quick color shift though.

Good Fortune to all!

 

[LFS42]

1st question is how old are the bulbs?

My biggest complaint with pc is they don't hold thier spectrum as long as other bulbs.
it's all in the ballast that controlls them.
some burn hotter than they need to and prematurly burn out the bulbs.

at the store, we have a Jahli fixture that we replace the bulbs every 2-3 months


before you throw money at other fixtures, see if you replace the ballast easily.
the other option is the actinic pc bulbs may not be the best spectrum either.
you may want to try NO flourecent actinic bulbs just to see the difference.


just my 2 cents

 

[Newts]

I run PCs on one of my tanks, 2- 10000k and 2- actinic and they never look yellow. I run my bulbs for 18 months and never see a dramatic shift in color and don't run in to bad algea problems from it. I've been running that tank for 4 years like that, softies and LPS and everything is looking awesome, colors are great.