essabee

Some of you know that I am building a new aquarium for myself, its about 1000 liters and will have plants and pressurised CO2. The water depth shall be about 2 feet.

I have already ordered the lights for the aquarium. Its going to have 5 nos. Metal Halide 150 Watts fixtures and also 4 nos. 36 Watts PLL fluorescent. The tank shall also receive some direct and indirect sunlight from the terrace side where I have a tinted glass hatch opening in the canopy of the tank.

I have always believed that a full spectrum is the best light for an an aquarium - planted or otherwise. A full spectrum will bring out the true colours of whatever the tank contains. When it comes to planted aquarium the spectrum and the intensity of light becomes even more interesting. Now its my hypothesis that if plants are given a flat intense spectrum of all the colour bands used for photosynthesis - each specie of plant will develop its full colouration and you will also be able to see it in all its glory.

The limitation are the bulbs available to us. Each bulb has its limitation in reproduction of the visible spectrum. So I have decided to solve the problem by mixing the spectrum. Past year I started mixing florescent bulbs with different spectrum in my smaller tanks with some success. Then you all know that florescent bulbs are not full spectrum ever and limited to the colours emitted by the specific phosphors in the mix of the coating.

My new tank provides me the opportunity of mixing the spectrum of MH bulbs. Out of the 5 nos. 150 watt bulbs 2 shall be of 10000K and three of 3000K. The 4 36W florescent shall be of 6500K. I expect the final light to look a little yellower than the 6500K MH. Somewhat like golden sunlight.