tank lighting

[0M3N]

what is the best lighting to make tropical fish look more colourful.I noticed that when i look at fish at the lfs there brighter than mine
ive got the rio 180 tank with the standard lighting system
any ideas?

 

[Cheese Specialist]

You can get bulbs with different colour spectrums, if you get one which tries as much as it can to replicate sun light, that would be good I think.

 

[konrad05]

try to avoid buying bulbs at a fish store, go to a hardware store, home depot for example. They sell full spectrum bulbs for peanuts. I bought 4 foot tubes for 1/4 the price of the ones in the fish store and the fish look great!
Aim for kelvin temperature between 5000-7000K, this is the closest to the sun, everything higher becomes really purple and blue.

 

[Sky042]

6500K is ideal natural light.
However some bulbs emphasize more of the spectrum. Also something neat is the 50/50 bulbs they have a 6000K core with a 50% 03 actinic blue which makes the water and fish beautiful.

 

[George Farmer]

I've had good results with Arcadia Freshwater Lamp and Interpet Daylight Plus, they're ideal for growing plants and bring out the fish colours really well, I also use reflectors to increase intensity for the plants.

 

[buggyboutbettas]

I just got a 18000 K bulb. it's a little blueish but it encourages plant growth and makes my betta look really colourful.
you also want to make sure that you wattage is 2-3 watts per gallon. I have 5 gallon tank and 14 watt bulb so thats like 2.8 watts per gallon which is pretty dang good.
HTH