Feed The Red!

So you have an in tank reactor. Your possiblely still light on Co2 and could increase your bps. Don't use your drop checker to tell you how much, use your fish to tell you. Drop checkers while a great tool are not all that accurate of telling you how much co2 is really in the water. I run mine bright yellow fish ate doing great and my plants pearl towards the end of the light cycle. Pearling plants are an easy way to say you have enough of light and co2 and the plants are happy.

Do you dose via EI
 
yeah im doing the EI schedule, and checking nitrates 2 out of 3 days since originally b4 my ferts i had 0 and BGA was everywhere.. (now the BGA is barely anywhere in the tank) and the nitrates seem to between 15-30. I'll raise the bps up tomorrow and see what happens
 
well the red in my plants is being pulled out, started with switching 1 of the 4x t5ho 6,500k bulbs to a pink plant bulb. however ive read places that red/pink bulbs will make plants grow tall, while actinic(blue) makes them grow bushy. Some of my plants are growing tall really fast and i want them bushier. should i go 2x 6,700k; 1x pink, 1x actinic blue???
 
Just stick with a good full spectrum bulb in the 5000-10000K range. (2X 6700k) is fine or (1X 5500K, 1X 10000K) will give the plants all they need and look good without all the unnatural purple, blue and pink hues from the other bulbs.
 
Any of those in a full spectrum 'daylight' bulb will work. 5500K is far from pink. It's more yellowish and closer to the tropical noonday sun. A 10000K full spectrum bulb is bright bluish white and will balance out the overall color and appearance and brighten up the tank.
10000k is a far cry from the blue light a standard actinic bulb produces (save it for saltwater applications), while a true 'pink/red' plant bulb is in the 2400-4400k range.
Any full spectrum daylight bulb will give the plants more than enough of the red and blue spectrum they require. People mix the different K ratings to achieve a light that's pleasing to the eye and that's as close to natural sunlight as possible (CRI) while still giving the plants what they need for photosynthesis.

If you paired a pink bulb with an actinic blue bulb (deep purplish hue), it's not going to look pleasing to the eye at all and will fail to show the true colors of the fish and plants.

Since this is a 4 bulb fixture, I'd go with 1X 5500K, 1X 6700K, and 2X 10000K. I think you'll get great results with this mixture and will look nice, as well.
 
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At this point all you need to worry about are gardening and trimming good, and then CO2/current related issues.

L granulosus is a good easy red plant, make sure to cut with scissors only, the stems can melt if you abuse them a bit too much.
 
I use a mix of bulbs, right now......my preferred:

ATI blue special
ATI purple
GE starcoats(Good all around daylight white bulb)
Aquawave red/Zoomed's a good Flora sun etc, or the Giesemann aqua flora. These red bulbs go in the front and the blue right behind that, the purple in the middle and some GE's mixed it.
 
does the coloration of the light really have noticeable effect on plants? And how does the coloration in your tank look with so many variations of bulbs together?
 
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