The Grassy Glow Super Blue 25,000 K metal halide bulb from Volx Japan with the potential to take blue reef lighting up to eleven. Although we consider ourselves evangelists of LED reef aquarium lighting, we promise we haven’t given up on metal halides and the Grassy Glow 25K is just the latest product to help us keep the faith in HID. With the Grassy Glow 25,000K spectral peak around 454 nm or so, the Super Blue bulb should give you an abundance of blueness to make all your corals zing. The Super Blue bulb is only available in a double ended model at the moment so those of you with Mogul based systems, sorry.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen some high-numbered halide bulbs coming in from Japan. Iwasaki released a 50,000 K bulb a few years back that didn’t pack the extreme blue punch we were expecting so we’re hoping the team at VolxJapan was better at packing in more blueness into the bulb. For the record any Kelvin rating above 20,000K is approaching ludicrous in terms of actual measurement, but just in case Volx Japan is naming the Super Blue the 25,000K lamp because it’s bluer than the run of the mill 20K then we’re willing to give it a shot. Furthermore, we’d love to pass the Apogee MU-200 UV meter under the GG25K to see how much UV is in the long tail of the spectrum below the 400nm wavelength.
If you are looking for less blue, the Grassy Glow line of MH bulbs also includes a 14,000 K and 10,000 K model. No pricing or availability outside of Japan is available at the moment but we get the feeling after this post it will be a matter of time until we see it in the American reefing scene. A spectral comparison of the three Grassy Glow metal halides is after the break.
