Best Lighting?

Hey fish keepers,

Just looking for some opinions on lighting for my South American setup for a planted discus display.

I’m looking for a mixed light spectrum for good plant growth and outstanding coloration on the fish, my current lighting just doesn’t seem to be cutting it.

I have a aquaone brilliance 120 and it comes with 2 T5 tunes one white/yellow and one pink.

Now there are many options for this to be upgraded possibly to 2 tubes dedicated for plant growth witch ever they may be then I could add some LED strip lights under my hood to enhance the coloration of the fish?

I can’t find enough information regarding this with right kelvin ratings for both applications etc.

So basically looking for the best suited upgrade with what I have with out moving from the stock fixtures and altering my aquariums cosmetics.

Dedicating my 2 T5 tubes to plant growth makes sense as plants need more power than it does to make colors on fish pop as to why I think it’s best to dedicate the tubes to the plants and add some additional LED strips for color enhancement...

What’s your opinion on this guys?

Below is a current photo of my display with stock lighting 2x T5 35w one white/yellow and one pink.

Thanks!

I only use globes with a 6500K rating. Anything less than 4500K gives you a red or yellow tinge to everything. Anything above 7000K has too much blue light in and is not suitable for most freshwater fishes, especially if they come from blackwater (the Amazon).

Any good opinions for my lighting? Perhaps change my 2 T5s? There 3ft would you suggest a brand an kelvin rating setup for this application?

As far as I'm concerned, lights are lights and anything with a 6500K rating should be suitable. T5s are fine and probably required considering the tank height, which I assume is 2 foot high? T8s won't provide enough light for plants at the bottom of the tank.

Yes about 2ft is correct, it doesn’t seem I’m having issues with plant growth but I seem to be lacking the pop factor on the fluorescent fish

Part of that is the light gravel, fish are always paler when over a light substrate. To get the best colour/ contrast from fish in an aquarium, you want a dark background (you have black, which is great), and a dark substrate. You have a light substrate and no floating plants, both of which cause fish to pale.

Lights with a low Kelvin rating don't show colours as well. Lights with a 6500K rating make the water look clearer and show colours the best.

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Your Ambulia looks a little pale on top and this can be lack of iron. You want to keep the iron levels at 1ppm (mg/l) for best results.

Ambulia will tell you when it has had enough light. It closes up the leaves and pushes them against the stem when it has had sufficient light. The top set of leaves close first, then the next set and so on down the stem. Leave the light on for about 1 hour after the top set of leaves have closed up and that should be pretty close to ideal for the plants.

Ok that’s brilliant thank you for all the helpful tips!

Your exactly right I assumed the pale top of the plant was from being too close the top of the aquarium where the light is strongest but low iron makes sense!

Your 100% right I have seen the plants after about 10-12hours of light they close up! This is very cool to see happen.

So it seems I have found an LED strip good for 6500-7000K that I can add for additional lighting to make some colors pop within the fish and as for substrate I chose the lighter one as it gave more of a natural contour to the aquarium aesthetics and I wouldn’t want to start all over again haha so the substrate will stay I just need to look for additional steps to make the color pop in the fish with correct lighting requirements

You mentioned discus in post #1. Discus do not appreciate bright overhead lighting. Floating plants would improve their colour as it will "relax" them; most all tropical forest fish occur in shaded waters, either via floating plants when the water receives direct sunlight, or by overhanging marginal vegetation when it does not, and the latter is the more common.

Given the need for less rather than more light for the fish (you will see improved colouration on any forest fish with shade over them), you need to carefully select plants that will not need bright lighting. Each species of plant has its own requirement for light intensity which is needed to drive photosynthesis, and we generally group the plants as low light, moderate light and high light requiring, though these are general and subjective labels.

Algae is another issue. The light must balance the nutrients and be sufficient for the plants; if this balance gets out algae will take advantage. Too much light, or light of the wrong spectrum, can increase the troublesome algae, as can too little.

Knowing the tank dimensions (length, width, height) and the specifics of your present lighting, we can go from there.

I think the future in lighting (home and aquarium) is in LED. Brighter light, longer lasting, and less power consumption. I still have florescent tubes on some tanks but on my 60g low tech planted tank I have a 48" Finnex Planted Plus 24/7. I have it on a timer from 6am until midnight, It's working great and the dawn to dusk 24/7 feature offers surreal nature like viewing. Even with floating water sprite, other plants are also doing well.
(On my 110g stock tank I have two LED shop lights)