Lighting

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Richer

AC Members
Aug 7, 2002
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Edmonton, AB
molahs


Posts: 5
From: Albany, CA
Registered: Nov 2002
posted November 12, 2002 08:29 PM IP: Logged


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I just got a compact florescent hood and bulb set for a 90 gallon freshwater tank. I plan on planting it pretty heavily, but here's my question. It comes with four 65 watt bulbs, two-10,000k and two blue actinic. I know actinic is meant for saltwater reefs, but am I going to get a lot of good lighting for my freshwater plants or did I make a bad purchase?
Thanks for your help.



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Richer
Moderator


Posts: 824
From: Edmonton, AB
Registered: Aug 2002
posted November 12, 2002 11:45 PM IP: Logged


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Welcome to the board =)
the two 10 000k bulbs will be fine on a plant tank, i personally use a 55 watt 10 000k bulb on my 15 gallon tank, and it works great.
as for the actinic, not quite sure what they are, but i know they are usually used in saltwater setups... not sure if they will be useful in a plant setup. see if you can find replacement bulbs... CF bulbs aren't that expensive. Try getting bulbs in the 5000-6400k range. i like bulbs in the 6400k range, but thats my own preference.

HTH
-Richer



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a_free_bird73


Posts: 361
From: Melbourne, Australia
Registered: Jun 2002
posted November 13, 2002 01:09 AM IP: Logged


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Actinic produce only blue light and a little UV. Not very useful in fresh water tanks for Fish display and of limited use for plants. Although plants can use the blue spectrum, they also need a strong red spectrum which is missing in actinics... I would certainly be inclined to change them or use them for a salt water setup instead...


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Jameson


Posts: 13
From: Ridge, NY USA
Registered: Aug 2002
posted November 13, 2002 04:24 AM IP: Logged


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Well I have a 55gal with 130watts of CF on top. Both Smartlamp bulbs being half ultra daylight, half actinic. My plants readily pearl (I am running DIY co2 with a Plantguild power reactor) 2 hours after I turn on the lights and the stem plants grow near an inch a day, the ruffled and amazon swords pearl after about 6 hours of light. With no CO2 the plants still grew well at about half the speed they are now.
Molahs, since you already made the investment, and you have plenty of wattage to grow most anything I dont think you will have ANY problems based on my experience. I feed tons, have an overstocked/overfiltered tank, and fertilize with flourish tabs, one for every two swordplants, and flourish potassium. When i use iron or flourish trace I get cloudy water for a day or two so I stopped, and grwoth is fabulous, water crystal clear due to micron changed weekly in 350 magnum, and sponges/floss/ one liter seachem matrix in the fluval 204. I am AMAZED at the lush underwater garden I created, it isn't so hard, just dont overfertilize and plant more than you think necessary at first. REMOVE OLD(er) Leaves.

JC



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molahs


Posts: 5
From: Albany, CA
Registered: Nov 2002
posted November 13, 2002 10:34 AM IP: Logged


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Thanks for your help. It sounds like I should be able to have a pretty heavily planted tank without a problem. I am buying the lighting fixture through Ebay, so I may not be able to do anything about the bulbs. I will see if I can exchange them, but if it doesn't happen it sounds like it will still be a great tank. I need to do some more reading about light spectrums and their effect on plants and fish in a freshwater tank. I know that blue actinics are used for reef tanks, but it's good to know that the light won't be unusable for a planted freshwater tank, just less than optimal.
If anyone has any suggestions for further reading on the subject I would appreciate it.

This is a great resourse- I'm glad I discovered it. I will probably use it frequently. Thanks y'all.

-Scott



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gcvt


Posts: 360
From: SF, CA
Registered: Oct 2002
posted November 14, 2002 12:25 AM IP: Logged


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Just for fun, I did a little lighting comparison with my planted tank:
With 80w of 5700k & 96w of 6700k:


With 80w of 5700k & 96w actinic:


With 96w actinic only:


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Start slow, then taper off.

My Fish Tanks page
My Heater Specs page



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molahs


Posts: 5
From: Albany, CA
Registered: Nov 2002
posted November 14, 2002 05:38 PM IP: Logged


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There is a big viewing difference between the 3 bulb combinations. Very interesting.
The seller is willing to give me 6500k, 10,000 daylights or 7100k actinics, or any combination of them. Now I need to make a decision. Most people seem to lean toward the 6500k for freshwater planted tanks. Beyond personal preference, is there any reason to go with something other than the 6500k?

On a slightly different note, it sounds like I will have more of a challenge fighting algae without CO2 in a 90 gallon tank with 2.44 watts/gallon of CF lighting. I'm not ready to commit to CO2 yet, but who knows what will happen once I get it up and running. This is already pretty expensive so I'm not going to shell out the money for CO2 yet.

This is a great resourse. Thanks for your help everyone.



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Matak


Posts: 367
From: Stouffville, On. Can.
Registered: Jun 2002
posted November 15, 2002 10:06 PM IP: Logged


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Interesting. The colour looks much better on the 80w of 5700k & 96w of 6700k, but much more detail is visible with 80w of 5700k & 96w actinic. Does this happen with the naked eye or is it just how it appears in the pic?
Steve




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carpguy


Posts: 165
From: New York
Registered: Jul 2002
posted November 16, 2002 05:14 AM IP: Logged


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I've been zipping around in the archives here and at Aquabotanic to try to get this straight in my own mind (just in the middle of setup).
Plants are partial to red and blue areas of the spectrum. They don't bother absorbing green-yellow light (which is why they are the color they are). A couple of sources suggested algae was happier in the bluer end of the spectrum than in the red. A couple of sources also suggested that redder light promoted taller growth, bluer bushier. Someone suggested that by only supplying half of the useful spectrum, the plants were only getting half of the utility of the light.

A lot of people seem to like to balance a number of different colors. Some used 10000ks in conjunction with lower temp bulbs and were happy with it.

My understanding of the actinics in reef tanks was that the heavy blue gave the natural appearance of what you'd see at some depth, after the other wavelengths washed out. In the first couple of feet (a more normal FW enviroment) you'd see the fuller, warmer spectrum.

Personally I think the hard blue looks unnatural. I was wondering if people who prefer it are maybe attuned to flourescent lighting themselves (ie. it looks more normal to them, not trying to pass an aesthetic judgement here). I think the crispness is in the middle photo is partly a posterization from the photo being lo-res, but also the bluer light doesn't seem as diffuse as the warmer light -- it seems to be spotting flats, while vertical surfaces and shadows seem warmer.

A few people at Aquabotanic also mentioned that if you had red plants, they'd wash out in the bluer light. I think some of the red plant folk may have gone lower and higher to balance (ie 4000k and 10000k, instead of 2x6500k).

At the end of the day the appearance is personal preference. I also think there is some science on the side of lower color temps.

Some threads for your consideration:
Lighting
What color bulbs…
The Krib on Lighting Spectrum…

Enjoy,
-c



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80gJoe


Posts: 582
From: Orlando, FL USA
Registered: Jul 2002
posted November 16, 2002 05:56 AM IP: Logged


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gcvt,
Great comparison! My Custom Sealife reflector (the first one) came
with an Atinic. It's on the shelf collecting dust.
Looks like you have a "mid-day, then "dusk", then
a "little after dusk" effect going on with
the comparison...

I didn't much care for the bluish look of the Atinic light on my aquarium, even with
a 5700K..



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gcvt


Posts: 360
From: SF, CA
Registered: Oct 2002
posted November 16, 2002 11:39 AM IP: Logged


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quote:
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Originally posted by Matak:
Interesting. The colour looks much better on the 80w of 5700k & 96w of 6700k, but much more detail is visible with 80w of 5700k & 96w actinic. Does this happen with the naked eye or is it just how it appears in the pic?
Steve

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I'd have to say that the pics are kind of close to real-life. The 5700k & 6700k combo definitely looks the best to me. With the 5700k and actinic combo, the contrast between the green and red plants seems greater...but it's way too blue for my taste. With that said, I'm obviously not a fan of the 'actinic-only' look.


quote:
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Originally posted by 80gJoe:
gcvt,
Great comparison! My Custom Sealife reflector (the first one) came
with an Atinic. It's on the shelf collecting dust.
Looks like you have a "mid-day, then "dusk", then
a "little after dusk" effect going on with
the comparison...

I didn't much care for the bluish look of the Atinic light on my aquarium, even with
a 5700K..


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Thanks 80. I was in the middle of tank maintenance after reading this original post, and took the actinic bulb off my saltwater tank and threw it on the planted tank just to see what would happen. Like I said, I don't like the actinic look much - I'll be sticking with the 5700k & 6700k setup, until I get rid of the 5700k fixture in favor of another system. I'm thinking about going with Metal Halide on my reef tank, so one of the two Custom Sealife 2x96w PC setups would be available for the planted tank. Hmm, I guess that means I'd eventually have one 1x96w AH-Supply setup for sale

------------------
Start slow, then taper off.

My Fish Tanks page
My Heater Specs page



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plantbrain


Posts: 774
From: Goleta , CA
Registered: Apr 2001
posted November 16, 2002 12:49 PM IP: Logged


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Here's one thing that is often(always?) over looked.
Folks spend all this $$$ getting high powered efficient lighting, yet use inefficient color temps.
This I really don't understand.
1 watt of 7100K atinic vs 1 watt of 4000K will produce much less plant growth.
Now the plants can and will grow, biut they will get much more use out of the 4000-6500K range. And while plants do better with a little blue with mainly red, the amount of light coming from the bulbs should be mostly in the red wavelengths.
Plants have assessory pigments to colllect light at other wavelengths than what Chl a and b absorb. So do algae.
These pigments are not as efficient as Chl a and b which the different assessory pigments filter down from a higher energy state to the Chl molecules.

For example to show this point:
This means that I could grow plants at 100 watts of 7100K and at 500K with only 50 watts and get the same growth rates.
I'm just using 50% as an example here and the amount will vary plant to etc.

But this shows the point here.
Folks get all excited about using NH4 over NO3 because uptake is 20% easier compared to NO3 if the plant is given only one source(virtually all plants actually do best with both NH4 and NO3) when the total energu budget for the plant only represents perhaps less 0.5% for nitrogen uptake but then folks use some super blue light that is wasting energy.

I think folks have gotten use to it since making companies can sell the super white colors for both FW and SW but it's not that good for plants, yea, plants will grow, but you can use less light and get the same if not better growth with less. Over the course of a year, that can add up to 50-100$ for the same result on a single tank.

I personally like the look of warmer bulbs.
I think of those fluorescent cheesy plastic plants when I see blue bulbs.

You can hanfg on to the bulbs but given a choice, 2x as much red color/warm bulbs(4-5000K) to each 6500-6700-8800K that you use is a good ratio.
Plants benefit some blue, but it's not a lot.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
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