Do I gain anything by turning on the actinics first, then the daylight bulbs? Then doing the reverse in the evening? Basically, is there any point to trying to be cute with your lighting?
What's the purpose of actinic bulbs?
- Thread starter joe schmoe
- Start date
Actinics are for human viewing pleasure only. They actually have less PAR output (watt per watt) than lower Kelvin bulbs.
Many people use actinics for the dawn/dusk effect by having them on before and after the daylights go off.
Many people use actinics for the dawn/dusk effect by having them on before and after the daylights go off.
I think that actinics offer important spectrums of light for corals, but I feel like I am wasting my time using one on my 20g FOWLR. I think that for FOWLR the lighting should be based mostly upon the viewer's preference.
I have an Eclipse system 12 with its standard compact flourescent bulb and that system has no algae bloom problems and plenty of corraline growth on the rocks and tank. My 20g has 1 daylight and 1 actinic standard flourescent bulb and it constantly suffers from small diatom blooms. I might upgrade to 1 50/50 power compact and see if it helps.
I have an Eclipse system 12 with its standard compact flourescent bulb and that system has no algae bloom problems and plenty of corraline growth on the rocks and tank. My 20g has 1 daylight and 1 actinic standard flourescent bulb and it constantly suffers from small diatom blooms. I might upgrade to 1 50/50 power compact and see if it helps.
If I read right actinic lights give out more purple light in the spectrum. This is used by invertabrates and corals.
Give more purple light than what? Comparing the use of white bulbs to blue ones say for metal halides 10000k white and 20000k bluesih. The 200000k will actually make the corals grow with a florecent color, if you used 10000k and supplemented with attnic bulbs it would just appear to be florecent, it doesn't actually affect the color of the growing coral, from what I understand. I dont use attnic, but I would if I could afford the VHO setup.
msouth468 said:
You will get better growth out of 6500 K than 20000 k for coral. It will take to much writing to explain coral color.
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium...n_pocillopora_part_2.asp?ast=NL072105A07&key=
