I have been lucky enough to trial the new iQuatics purple tube for the last few months on my personal aquarium. This is just a short article on the benefits of a purple tube and my findings on using the iQuatics purple tube first hand.

Let’s start with the benefits and why more and more people are adding a purple tube to their lighting setups.
One of the main reasons people are using purple tubes is the colouration that they offer. With an increased amount of red in the spectrum a purple tube will help to show up vibrant reds that can be found in coral, fish and inverts as well as aid the growth of coralline algae. It is important to provide a broad spectrum of light for corals to flourish; adding a purple tube to a lighting set up just extends the range of light that you are offering your marine aquarium.
There have been reports that purple tubes can increase the amount of algae growth within the aquarium; however I’m happy to say that after using the iQuatics purple tube for 3 months I’ve seen no increase in algae growth apart from more coralline algae. I have been using mine as part of a 6 tube set up in the iQuatics series 2 AquaLumi, I swapped it for one of our 50:50 tubes (I was previously running 2 White 10000k, 2 Blue+ & 2 AquaBlue 50:50 tubes). My personal feeling is that the purple gives everything a lift in colouration, not only does it accentuate the reds but alongside the other tubes it really does help to lift lots of colour in the aquarium.
My corals all seem happy and healthy and I have seen colouration in them that just wasn’t there before adding a purple tube.
Do you want to add a purple tube to your set up ? Iquatics T5 Purple is livable in all standard T5 sizes.
24W T5 Purple
39w T5 Purple
54W T5 Purple
80W T5 Purple
You have just read another great aquarium blog post by iQuatics. If you would like us to blog about a specific subject or have your own aquarium blog content you would like published on our website, please get in touch. Together we can help grow the iQuatics aquarium blog into a vast resource full of combined industry knowledge.