[markstr]

Hi,
I just acquired a Coralife 96watt. Power Quad setup.
50/50 on the lighting. formally from a reef tank..
Great setup and the adjustable legs are fantastic!!!
Lights are fairly new..

Just wondering, I've heard that for Planted Tanks the
Actinics are useless.. (wrong light spectrum etc)
For the mean time will these lights work alright for my
Plants.. I am in the process of getting (hellolights) a
65k quad for it.. Currently I've been useing 13 watt
65k lights (3) .... ( 13gal. Eclipse Tank with DIY CO2)
I am seeing quite a bit of Blue though (duh) but still
isn't too bad..
Would like to get some feedback on this if possible..
Thank YOU!!!

 

[trenac]

Actinic blue lights do not benifit plants like a normal plant bulb does but I would not say they are useless to plants, IMO. Using a actinic blue for a short time will not hurt the plants at all, I used one for about a year. One thing to watch for is algae out breaks when increasing your light, other then that all should go well.

 

[niko]

The 96 quad is a bulb that has the 4 tubes so crowded that you actually get about 50 watts of light, not 96.

That maybe ok for a small tank but over a 30 gal cube that bulb is good for nothing else but a very low light set up. I also used the 50/50 White/Actinic 96 quad for several months with no algae problems but the light was way low.

Scientific articles dealing with growing algae find it useful to use light below 500 nm (roughly blue light and UV) but I'm not entirely convinced that part of the spectrum will encouraging or could limit algae growth.

--Nikolay

 

[markstr]

Well,
this particular lighting is over my 13 gal. Eclipse
Tank. Which I agree Niko, but I think for this size
it seems to work pretty good..
I have a 37 gal. Oceanic Tank in the works with a 175watt.
halide setup and 55pc installed.....
I also am getting setup a 18x18x18 cube that I'm trying
a 175 Hamilton Pendent light on... Thinking about using
a 14k. bulb on this to try out. I also have a 67k for it..
Just going to experiment!!!!!