so you think in conjunction with your T5s you need nothing other than blue and white basically?
. Yep. I did have it setup with just royal blues and whites and did not like the look. After I added the normal blues, it looked a lot crisper, and got rid of that purple hue the royal blues give off. Obviously the violet/420 are unnoticeable in the mix of things. T5s are proven to grow corals and get awesome colors. Why would u need to add reds and greens and cyan if u already have the correct wavelengths from your t5 bulbs??? At least that's my thinking. As long as you are happy with how the tank looks when the t5s turn off, and I accomplish that by cranking the whites up and down as the t5s turn on and off. When t5s are on, turn the whites down/off. when t5s are off, crank the whites back up until the color looks good to your eye. No need to worry about correct wavelengths, the corals just got that from the hours when u were running t5s. I don't know if that's the right way to look at it, but it works for me.
I am assuming you only run all together for a shorter period of time.
Correct. That is, IMO, the perks of t5/led hybrid. U don't need to run t5s all day. Let the more efficient LEDs do the grunt work, and your hotter more expensive t5 bulbs only run at peak hours.
On my current setup, I have 6-80w t5s on 3 separate ballasts. So in the morning and at night, I let the LEDs run by them selves for a few hours. Then kick on 1 ballast at a time in the am and reverse it in the PM. I think on my current setup, I have all t5s and all LEDs on only for 3 hours.
Aesthetically you like the look with that combo when the T5s are off and just the LEDs are on?
Yes. if the LEDs are dimmable, and on a controller (apex, arduino, etc), u can adjust the color when the t5s are on and off. Typically with my setup, when the t5s are on, the tank is whiter. So turn the white LEDs off. But obviously that will be too blue when the t5s kick off.
