Copious

I use 10,000 k Dual Daylight. I'll admit that I don't know much about lighting, or color spectrum so I'm going to be watching this post with interest. When I was outfitting my aquarium with a lighting upgrade I asked for recommendations from different suppliers and this was recommended for my needs more often than any others. When I got the aquarium there was a horrible purple light in it.

I'm curious about actinic lighting. I keep coming across it but I'm not seeing any advantage for my aquarium. It says the blue actinic lights reach farther into a deep aquarium. As long as the smaller plants are getting enough light to grow and thrive is there a need for blue lights? Don't the daylight bulbs provide blue spectrum?

Sunstar

I use the flora-glo bulb on my back fixture and soften it with the sun-glo on my front fixture. it seems to break up the pinkish hue.

I am tempted to get an aqua-glo when I replace my sun-glo which is coming up soon.

BryceM

I'm using 5,500K spiral compact flourescents over my 46 bow. Things are a tad on the yellow side, but the plants seem to grow just fine.

Copious

Mine doesn't have the actinic part right now, but I just took at look at my lights. I'm half blind now, but with it on, one half does look slightly blue compared to the other half, which looks softer white. Now that didn't tell me a hell of a lot about what colors are being emitted from my particular bulb and other than making me half blind I don't believe I really accomplished much.

Actually what I think you're saying is that the duel daylight combination of 10,00k 6700k works to feed the plants and makes the colors of everything look better by providing the extra green bands of light? If I got that right then I'll stick with the dual daylight bulbs because it looks like a good compromise.

Mine is a SunPaq retrofit kit too. As soon as I installed it and got rid of that horrible purple light that came with I liked the difference. I could see the details of my substrate and even pick out snails wandering across the bottom from across the room.

One of these days I want to get an aquarium with 4-5 watts per galon. The lights really add to the enjoyment for me.

BryceM

Just so that nobody that reads this gets confused.......

Actinic lighting exists for only one reason. Symbiotic organisms that live in corals require this type of light to survive. Therefore, the only practical application for actinic lighting is for reef systems.

It probably won't hurt anything in a freshwater planted setup, but it will be a big waste of electricity.

Newt

Actually, I believe actinic means to stimulate photosynthesis or some such similar phrase. Its practical use is for marine setups but can be used in the planted aquaria..............................the property of radiant energy especially in the visible and ultraviolet spectral regions by which chemical changes are produced.

Newt

Here is an example of how two bulbs of the same kelvin rating can have different spectral outputs: Philips C50 and C75 compared to GE Chroma 50 and Chroma 75 (these are for linear fluorescent bulbs).

Drewbad

I just ordered a retrofit kit for mt 29h freshwater at the link below. I couldn't beat the $29 price!https://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewI...3&fromsource=4
This is a marine reef system setup, but it should give me significant growth over my single, 15w "daylight" white tube, dont you think?

Model # : CLSMR2455, Size: 23"x3"x2.2", Number of Bulbs: 1 - 65W
SmartLite Fixtures come with the worlds first true 10,000K Premium Daylight and Ultra Actinic lamps side by side. The Premium Daylight tube duplicates the natural full spectrum lighting requirements of fish and invertebrates while the Ultra Actinic tube peaks at 460 nanometers, providing necessary energy for activation of phoptosynthesis in chloropyll A and C.
built in electronic ballast, ventilated for cool operation, polished reflector, all lamps included

BryceM

I'd agree that actinics (and almost any other bulb) can produce light energy in wavelengths useable by freshwater plants. Enough of just about any kind of light seems to be able to overpower an imperfect kelvin rating. In practical usage, most people have found that lighting in the 5,000-10,000K provides for effective photosynthesis while having a nice appearance. Most people prefer the 6,500-9,325K range. Actinic light is quite blue and apart from being less than optimal for photosynthesis, most people don't like how plants look under it.

jeff63851

I prefer to use two10000K bulbs along with two 6500K bulbs.

I also agree that actinic bulbs don't help your freshwater growth. That's probably why I had a huge algae growth last year.