Help Lighting!

[mjzuverink]

hey, I have a 110 gallon with african cichlids. i have always had just a regular flourecent T12 fixture. Im gettin bored with just the daylight bulbs from lowes. so i have been looking at the T12 bulbs that coralife carries. first I'm looking for a new T12 fixture that has better reflection, mine right now is just white behind the bulbs. secondly i dont know what kind of bulbs to get. I think i want one tru actinic blue, but then what what other one will look best with it. the color max one? or the 10,000 or 20,000 daylight bulbs they have, or their 50/50 bulb? i just dont know what combination would look best. please help!

secondly, for moonlight lighting, how many LED would look best for a 48inc 18 inc deep tank? would all blue, or some white work better, and how to position them in my canopy. any suggestions would be appreciated

 

[KittyKat]

Firstly, the bulbs your local hardware store carries are the same as the ones labelled "for aquarium use", but can be as little as 1/4 of the price.

Secondly, on my African with blue and yellow cichlids, I have the following mix: one blue, one white, one shorter pink which works well to bring out the colours.

Why do you need the reflectors? Do you have plants in there?

 

[mjzuverink]

well I know the ones at hardware stores are the same as the white aquarium ones, but the blue ones are the ones i like. so maybe i will just get q colormax bulb and then either a 50/50 or a actinic blue.

i always thought that a reflector just made the lights brighter, but if they are only for plants i guess i wouldnt need one, thanks!

 

[jmkgreen]

May be worth asking the question in the planted section.

Although you're not concerned with the plants too much (by the sounds of it) they do have expertise with the lamps & colours.

 

[KittyKat]

well I know the ones at hardware stores are the same as the white aquarium ones, but the blue ones are the ones i like. so maybe i will just get q colormax bulb and then either a 50/50 or a actinic blue.

Hmm.. sorry, best I can suggest is "cool daylight" (not "cool white") which has a colour temperature of 6500K and is available from Phillips.

i always thought that a reflector just made the lights brighter, but if they are only for plants i guess i wouldnt need one, thanks!

Yes, but with new lights, that can give you a bit of an algae bloom in a tank what most likely has not much in it to eat up the nitrates

 

[mjzuverink]

Yeah i know, right now we just have the daylight bulbs around 6000 out put each. and if we forget to turn them off at night, we definitely get a green tank in the morning, we have two 7 inch plecs but they cant seem to keep up with all the algaae, do you know of anything that keeps nitrate levels down that could survive in a very aggresive tank?

but thats another reason i wanna get these new bulbs, right now i think my tank looks toooo bright , and the blue bulb would help mellow it out a bit to sort of slow the growth of the algae

 

[KittyKat]

New bulbs will only be stronger then any old ones you may have so they won't help much with the algae unless you buy green ones (which will actually make the algae look worse).. after all, green algae can easily photosynthesise under any colour but green! Have you considered getting a timer for the lights and setting it so that they are off during part of the day when you might be out of the house and also switch the lights off at night? It is actually better for fish if the light go on and off at roughly the same time every day.

I agree with you about the plecos, mine only ever nom the wood or their food, it is more the cichlids here who keep the algae trimmed short on the rocks. The glass also gets a weekly scrub which works well to keep it clear.

Actually, I avoid the new bright light problem by using my old tubes on the African tank: so when one of the tubes in it needs replacing, I buy a new one for my planted tank and move the old one (at least 1yro, more like 2yro) from the planted tank to the african tank to replace the broken one. Having blue and pink tubes over the African does actually help to make it look less.. green, now that I think about it...

 

[mjzuverink]

thank you for all the help! i agree i think im going to go with a blue one and hte pink color max. im actually gonna head to miejer right now to get two timers for planted and my cichlid tank! hopefully this will help

 

[nano_reef_ubergeek]

I had a 6500k 26 watt GE bulb on my reef tank for a few days ..... people warned me about algae .... and sure enough .... that is what started to happen after a few days (small brown/green spots on the live rock)

the light from the bulb looked very good on the rock .... if the rock near the light was covered with zoanthus then I might have gotten away with it.....

I'm not sure if you can use these with freshwater tanks.

 

[nano_reef_ubergeek]

well, I put blue cellophane in front of the 6500k bulb to slow down the algae growth. Some people say that brown algae is normal in a new tank. I even have one book that says 5000k -5500k lighting is ok for a marine tank.

Maybe the blue wavelength is only needed if you are going to have certain types of coral -- I don't know. I ordered a 40w 10000k Current USA fixture because I had an anxiety attack over the brown algae.

 

[nano_reef_ubergeek]

well, I can report that the 6500k bulb that I'm using is working out just fine. A lot of the brown algae has disappeared and there is a small patch of green algae -- 1/2 inch long.

I think that I had brown algae because the tank was new.