Running Actinic Blub to Enhance Blues?

[Mr Discus]

Hi guys,

Just a quick question regarding my lighting...

I am running 4 x T5's on my 3 foot tank, with 2 x Daylights, 1 x Aquastar and 1 x Growlux.

Obviously the Aquastar and Growlux are there for my plants - therefore being red in the spectrum.

I have a very large piece of driftwood in the tank, and because it slowly releases its tanins the water is the typical 'yellowish' tea stained colour.

So the water coupled with the 2 red spectrum bulbs bring out the reds well in all my fish (discus, rams, cardinals etc), but I was wondering if anyone has used or is using an Actinic bulb to bring out the blues in all the fish?

I am confident that removing one of the Daylights shouldn't affect the plant growth, as they all grow like crazy as it is anyway.

So do you guys think this is a feasable idea?

Thanks in advance! :wink:

[ILLUSN]

I've used actincs before for the exact same reason, to show off my blue turks and blue diamonds/ocean greens.

I've since cut them out for more grolux tubes (much better plant growth).

what size is your t5 unit?, i have 3 or 4 brand new 39w sylvania actics if you want them. they're yours for postage only.

[fud]

I've heard that actinic lights can cause algae in F/W tanks.

[Mr Discus]

Cheers for the offer ILLUSN - I actually have a 39W T5 Actinic here anyway - I was just gauging opinions on whether this would work.

Fud - can I ask where you heard this? I wouldn't have thought that blue spectrum lighting would increase algae growth? Red maybe, but not blue?

[fud]

The first time I set my tank up I only had 2x30w daylight tubes ( not alot of plants then)& after a couple of months I decided I wanted more light.
The guy at the LFS said actinic would show off my fish the best so I got one.Soon after I got green water.(Looking back I'd say it was just coincidence).So I Googled "actinic light causing algae" & got pages of hits about it.
Apparently marine algaes us the uv wavelengths from actinic for growth.None of the f/w people who blamed the light for their algae trouble said why it causes algae.There was one article by some scientist that claimed actinic light had a photo-destructive(I think that was the term?) effect on Iron & it freed up the bound Iron in chelated Iron,making it available to algea.
I put my experience down to a coincidence caused by poor husbandry & I suspect most of the others used the actinic light as a handy excuse for the same.
It did make the fish look good,& whilst I'm not convinced they cause algae(don't people use uv systems to prevent algae?) I haven't been game to try again just in case.I can grow algae quite well without them anyway!
I'd still like to know the truth however so if anyone can clear it up for me I'd appreciate it.

[AHC]

Hi Guys,

I have 3 t5 light set up, 2 red tubes and 1 blue. I bought the light off ebay brand new and have no idea what globes they are, but guess they are the same as what you are talking about. My tank does show up quite red and i was looking at different globes. i found out that the Strong actinic blue spectral peak is recommended for photosynthetic corals, invertebrates and other marine life. (400nm and 500nm, peaking at 420nm).

You would want something in the 5000k - 10000k range which will work for your plants. If you can get some sort of blue globe that emits in this k range then your sweet. But i doubt you can? I am still researching when i can. Im looking to get a 5ft tank soon and am thinking of Halide lighting so am concentraing my readings on that.

[happygirl65]

Hello,
I am new here but thought I could offer some experience here on this subject. I have been doing planted tanks for about a year and a half now.
On my 55 gallon tank I use two 65w power compact 50/50 bubs which are half actinic and half daylight. This actually reduces the amount of effective light since in FW the actinic spectrum is nearly useless to plants. It has not increased algae. Infact if I were at this point to replace the bulbs with 5000k bulbs I would see a dramatic increase in algae, unless I were to increase fertilizers and inject CO2. Right now that light is just right to keep it a Med-Low light level, very limited algae (only a little bit on some rough rocks in there, none on the glass or gravel, or plants) and it looks very nice. I have a lot of success with amazon swords all kind of crypts, java ferns etc.

When I first switched from the stock lighting to the PC fixture algae growth was increased but that was because it was a relatively new tank and I was fertilizing too much. After a while everything settled in and I backed off on the ferts the algae went away.