Typical sales information. Many people today like color changing LED light strips so you can adjust the color what you want. However these lights typically produce red green and blue light, not the entire color spectrum plants need. White LED are blue LEDs covered with a phosphor that converts much of the blue to a wide array of colors which mimics natural light better. So for your light use mostly white with some red You don't need to add additional blue or green unless you like the results.Light showed up today but I'll probably wait until tomorrow to mount. Now I just have to decide what colors to use. There white, red, green and blue. I've always had full spectrum florescent in the past so really don't know the best color combination for LEDs.
It is really rather a little confusing. The link at the bottom is where I'm reading the following info.
Red lights: Better for nocturnal fish and are good for plants but will tend to promote algae.
Blue lights: Has a calming effect on fish and with blue, green, and, red fish, blue light helps accentuate their color. Also blue brings out more color with red plants.
White lights: This will be the dominant but many say isn't enough for healthy plants. White is also supposed to bring out more color with blue fish.
Green lights: The article doesn't really talk about green but my understanding is that it is good for plants so mayhaps I could go without the blue.
My initial thomught, as the blue lights are on a different intensity control, is to use the white, red and green lights at a higher intensity and blue at a low intensity.
All you need a a light with 90 CRI rating or higher ( Color Rendering Index) and a dimmer and possibly supplemental red light. Natural light has a CRI rating of 100. Plants can use all colors of light to grow. However plants absorb Blue and red light most efficiently. But some plants don't do well with just red nd blue.
As to the fish they don't like light to come on suddenly at full brightness. When you wake up in the middle of the night nnd turn on hhe light you know it is uncomfortable ntil your eyes adjust. It is the same way for fish. Preferably you want a light to come on at minimum brightness and then to slowly brighten up. My light is attached to Current Ramp timer The link shows the dual channel one but they also have a simpler single channel ramp time without any color controls. it turns on at minimum brightness and then slowly brightens and takes 30 minutes to reach the set brightness level. it also slowly turns off the light.
i attache the timer to 12 LED light strip with +90 CRI rating and a 3000K rating. Plant don't car about the kelvin rating and fish and plants only care about the brightness. This worked well but after a period of time I noticed that one plant that should have a max height of 2" were growing up to to 3 times taller. This is common symptom of not enough light or insufficient red light. So I added some 660nm red white LEDs generally don't produce a lot of red light and I only added a small amount of red had small amount of red to resolve the issue.
I went to tap plastic and found a 1/4 thick acrylic sheet on there leftower shelf (They make custom cut sheets and they then sell the leftovers). I cut it myself using a jig saw with a fine tooth blade and used a sander to to smother and trim the piece to fit in the recessed opening of my 5 gallon tank. Other than a small opening for feeding the rest of the top of the acrylic is cover with 1/16 inch thick sheet of aluminum(purchased at a local ACE hardware store. I covered one side with clear plastic tape and then mounted the lEDlight strips to that side and solder them them togetherI then mounted my ramp timer to the top dry side of the aluminum plate I thenscrewed the aluminum to the top of the acrylic lidwht a foam gasket ashes and hard spacer (to prevent crossing the LEDs) between the aluminum and acrylic to prevent water from getting in.
I built it for high light EI levels in case I wanted to go that route in the future. I don't remember the lumen rating of the LEDs but it is very bright at full power. there is about 3.75 square inches of aluminum per watt of LED power. That is enough to avoid using cooling fans. but if I make another in the future I will aid for 6 square inches of aluminum per watt. it is a little hotter then i like at full power. 90% of the time it is running at 40% brightness.
The Floexfire LED product lineup has changed since I did this but this is the closest they have now to what I purchaged.
I cannot find a link to the red LEDs I purchased.
Note the kelvin rating refers to the shad of white you want. do you want reddish white or a blue white. I prefer pure white which is about 3000K. As I stated earlier fish and plants don't care about the kelvin rating.