LOL. Well, to be honest, the brand new XM 10,000K bulbs looked just like my one
year old 10,000K Ushios... very very yellow. It was driving me nuts and I
couldn't stand to look at my tank.

Fortunately, about 10 days later (100 hours usage) the tank looks muuuuch
better, with a nice white/blue crisp look to it. I still supplement with
actinics, but only T5s now instead of VHOs.

I wrote an article about taking pictures, which you may have not seen yet?
http://www.melevsreef.com/take_great_pictures.html

There is a white balance feature on most prosumer models that can be adjusted,
even setting it yourself with the aid of something white in the tank. You can
set the camera to accept your own setting, by putting a piece of white PVC in
the tank, and pointing your camera at that and depress the shutter button. I've
had to do that with 20,000K lighting, and I was amazed how good the pictures
came out. Let me see if I can show you a comparison. ... hmm. Well, this is a
picture taken with the white balance corrected, under 20,000K bulbs.
http://www.dfwmas.com/newsletters_ht...March/sp_5.jpg
With the white balance left on Auto, it was bluuuue.

Matter of fact, that picture and many others are in this newsletter, including
the article about taking pictures. Plus the Featured Tank was taken by me as
well:
http://www.dfwmas.com/newsletters_ht...MAS_mar04.html

I'd like to see your sump. You can post a link here or email them to me if you
like.

Marc



Dieter Kedrowitsch wrote:

Hey Marc, what did your XMs look like before their 100hr burn in? Just last
night I have witnessed these bulbs I have start to shift from the dimmer
actinic blue looking to a very bright blue/white. I will see what they look
like when I get home from work.

I took pictures of the tank lit with the 5500K ventures and the new 10000Ks
and with both types of bulbs, the digital camera insisted it try to shift
the color and made my yellow tail blue damsels look purple and everything
has the wrong hue? How do you get such good pictures of your tanks? This
is a pretty good $600 Olympus camera...

BTW: Got some pics of the new sump I built that I will be uploading this
morning so I can post a link for you to check out. Looks pretty good in the
pictures.

Dieter

"Marc Levenson" wrote in message
...
I couldn't possibly identify a bulb based on that description. When I buy
bulbs, I buy them according to brand name, and they are clearly marked on
the
packaging and the bulb.

Ushios are German bulbs. I've used Ushio 175w 10,000K bulbs for the past
year,
and just replaced them with XM 10,000K bulbs.

A week later, I like the new XMs. My Ushios had turned an ugly yellow
color,
and it was driving me crazy with that horrible color. The XMs didn't look
good
until about 10 days later, but now I'm happy with them because they've
burned
over 100 hours now.

Marc

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