Do You Really Have To Change The Lights After A Year?

[Kevstir]

as the title says, id this fact or is it just a ploy by the manufacturers to get you to buy new bulbs/tubes every year??

also if this is true then you would expect to see a slow down in plant grows right?? is there any other symptoms like increase growth of certain types of algae..

Its coming up to the year for my lights , i have 2 arcadia freshwater tubes (25w) at the back and 1 interpet triplus at the front, is there any other light combination that might be better?? as i have a juwel tank i cant replace the triplus with another due to them having the integrated reflector and it being in the wrong place for juwel lighting, what would you suggest i replace the triplus with??

also im going to be tearing the tank down and putting tropica plant substrate under the sand, would it be a good idea to leave a very small amount of the old sand under the tropica substrate?? im thinking there could be beneficial bacteria in the old sand that might help things or am i just talking rubbish??

Cheers

Kev

 

[Underwurlde]

Interpet TriPuls is the best bulb for plants 'out there' IMO.

So, to improve, get TWO triplus in there and one Arcadia FW (<- these are good plant bulbs too).

Good combo that.

im thinking there could be beneficial bacteria in the old sand that might help things or am i just talking rubbish??

You are absolutely spot on there.

Andy

 

[Kevstir]

cheers m8

the new triplus tubes don't suit the juwel setups any more, because they have a built in reflector now they sit at the wrong angle on juwel light bars, is there any other tube that's as good as the triplus?

wouldn't putting 2 triplus at the back and 1 arcadia at the front make the tank look a bit pink??

Kev

 

[Kevstir]

what would you say is better between arcadia freshwater tubes and the Interpet Daylight Plus tubes??

 

[garuf]

day light plus give of the nicest light by far triplus is very pink

 

[Underwurlde]

Garuf is right there. Advantage of using Daylight plus tubes is that they look good (to both the plants and humans) even when used on their own.

I mentioned the triplus ones because when used with the Arcadia Freswater ones you already have I think will look just as good but I think the triplus ones are better for the plants perhaps..

Andy

 

[garuf]

I hated the look of my tank when i got triplus' the second i changed over i not only seemed to have better growth but the colours of my tank where so so much nicer a lovely crisp green all through

 

[Underwurlde]

Did you use the Triplus on their own then? Or with another tube?

Andy

 

[garuf]

Did you use the Triplus on their own then? Or with another tube?

Andy

on their own. I used the powercompact version.

 

[SuperColey1]

IMO the power compact bulbs give off a different intensity of light to a normal linear which is one reason i ditched mine.

The freshwater is the nicest colour rendition of any lamp I have tried when used on its own, much nicer than the daylight plus which was good but not as good.

The Triplus was a good pink light but this was compared to the Original Tropical which is the rankest pink light out there.

I would say use 2 freshwaters with 1 triplus because I think the arcadia gives a slightly genter light than the triplus and 2 triplus may overpower it a little

or move to HO T5 and buy the Realuxes.like me lol

pic in sig is a tall 33USG with 1 x 18W freshwater on. looks nice and good colours at only 0.55WPG!!!

Andy

 

[Kevstir]

thanks guys

today i was in an Acorn pet centrer and noticed they did interpet tubes, the only stock the had in was the old tubes without the built in reflector, i thought bonus but i could only find 1 30" 25w tube which was a daylight plus, i bought it and installed it, tbh the arcadia fresh water tube that's about 11 months old looks brighter, the daylight tube looks a tad green where as the freshwater is a nice white..

here is a picture, from top to bottom (taken from my mobile but you can still make out the difference)

Interpet triplus
Interpet daylight plus
Arcadia freshwater.

I will stick with the daylight for now but replace the other arcadia with the same and try and source an old style triplus for the front,would i be better putting the triplus at the back?? most of my plants are at the back anyway..

Kev

 

[George Farmer]

I say Zoo Med Ultra Sun 6500K, Arcadia Freshwater, JBL Solar Natur or Hagen Life-Glo.

Triplus are too purple IMHO. OK if mixed though. Internal reflector is U/S for most ballasts though. Same for new Interpet Daylight.

 

[Kevstir]

do you suggest going with all daylight george or sticking with what i have the now 2x daylight and 1 triplus??

im just sticking with 1.7wpg as i don't want to go co2,i use tropica plant nutrition and iv got some seachem excel , seachem potassium and tropica plant substrate coming tomorrow, im hoping with all that lot plus new tubes i will get better growth that i did before ..

this was the growth i got before, i used to take loads of wisteria out every 2 weeks

 

[SuperColey1]

You will find (IMO) the DaylightPlus is brighter than the Arcadia although it looks the othe way round, because of the difference in colours.

I prefer the freshwater though.

There are many different theories on pink lights. On APC a lot of them say it doesn't matter which spectrum you use at all but I prefer to use 1 pink and 1 daylight in mine (daylight meaning freshwater/daylightplus etc.)

Andy

 

[Kevstir]

well as money was tight and i just wanted to buy something today i ended up getting another freshwater tube and an arcadia original to replace the triplus.

iv read people say that the original bulb is crap but the arc pod original bulb i got for my little aqua one tank looks great, its very pink but man does it not half bring out the red in my fighter, before he looked a dull red now he looks blood red , after seeing that i thought i would get the original tube for the big tank, funny thing is the the original tube looks more blue compared to the arc pod original, still, the original tube looks nice , the cardinals look loads better than what they did with the triplus, there blue are soo much better, as for the reds i would say theres no difference they still look nice and red .

so , that's me got

1 - Arcadia Freshwater
1 - Arcadia Original
1 - Interpet Daylight Plus

all 25w

Next week i plan on emptying the tank and placing tropical plant substrate under the sand, so im hoping with that and the new lights i will see a nice improvement in the plants , iv been dosing excel and seachem potasium for 5 days now and can already see a differece so should be good to see what the new substrate can achieve..

cheers for the help guys..

Kev