Actinic lighting - any good?

Carissa,

Actinics are blue colored bulbs normally used for reef tanks.

I know some folks use them with FW, but I have not and cannot advise if this is okay or not.

I would replace it (check that this is possible and a replacement exists) with a normal daylight or other tube if possible.

 

Actnic tubes help grow grow algae so i would stay away from these, tubes peaking in a bit of blue is ok but not a lot.

 

How do actinic bulbs help grow algae over other bulbs and color temperatures?

 

I think the theory is that the spectrum from an actinic bulb isn't useful to plants, but is useful to algae, so it makes you have high light for algae with lower light for the plants. I'm not sure if this is an assumption or based on experiments.

 

The depths of our planted tanks are not enough to lose much light due to absorption by the water. Compared to what we lose just by the inverse square drop off in light intensity with distance, the absorption is negligible. So, we have no reason to want the deeper penetrating light spectrum. Aquatic plants grow in shallow water in nature so they haven't evolved to need the blue spectrum either, compared to corals, which grow in much deeper water. It makes good sense to provide a more balanced spectrum to our plants. Algae might possibly use that blue light, but that isn't too likely either.

 

Regarding the Aquapod for a planted tank - I have 2 in my house, a 24 gallon high-tech (co2, EI, modded the lights slightly to get 3.3 wpg) and a 12 gallon low tech my wife set up. Both are heavily planted, and both are beautiful tanks.

I swapped my actinic light for another Current dual daylight immediately after purchasing the tank, and my wife gets plenty of light in hers with just the single dual daylight, since the 12 gallon uses either 24 or 27 watt bulbs.

If you do purchase the 24 gallon, i would recommend getting am additional 32W 67k/10k bulb with it. It is relatively easy to replace, 5 minutes with a phillips screwdriver.

The tanks also include 2 blue LEDs for night viewing, which is very cool IMO.

I can post pictures of either tank if you are interested. Good luck!

 

I know each tank is different but thought I would put my 2¢ in here. I have a 125 gallon All Glass brand aquarium (about 6' long). I have extremely hard water and have a Coralife fixture above it that I only use 1/2 of the set of 4 lights that use 96 watts EACH. The lights I use are 50/50 10,000K and 04 actinic bulbs. I have replaced these bulbs once so far (right after purchasing the fixture which was used) with the exact same 50/50 bulbs. This tank has been running for well over a year now with no algae problems.

The only time I had algae problems was when I started messing with the lights but have learned my lesson. I do currently have a problem with green spot algae on my Anubias nana only and with it being a low light plant figured I just had it in the wrong spot (too much light).

I do weekly 30% water changes and add ferts only after adding new (aged) water.

Anyhow I have a hardness of above 300ppm (crushed coral and river rock) a PH of 7.2. I keep the following plants and all have been thriving for at LEAST 1 year and many others for the full year or longer.

Red Ozelot Sword(ECHINO OZELOT)
Bacopa Monnieri (Money wort)
Anubias nana(flowers like crazy).
Anacharis (Egeria Densa)
Red Ludwigia (Ludwigia repens broad leaf)
Rotala Indica (super fast pink and green)
Giant Hygro AKA (Hygrophila corymbosa) "stricta"
Anubias Lanceo
Anubias Minima
Hydrocotyle leucocephala (Pennywort) Brazillian Pennywort
Giant Bacopa (Bacopa caroliniana) aka LEMON BACOPA
(Aponogeton longiplumulosus) XNICE
Aponogeton natans
Aponogeton capuroni
Barclaya longifolia red
Petita Nana (Anubias barteri 'Petite')
Anubias barteri var nana 'Yellow Heart'
Suesswassertang AKA Süßwassertang
Hygro difformis
SAG-Narrow-Leaf Dwarf Subulata
Hairgrass, Giant
Anubias Coffeefolia
Bacopa sp. 'Colorata' AKA Bacopa Pink
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica' AKA Tropica Crypt
Plagiomnium Trichomanes

It may be just dumb luck but I thought I would throw that in for what it's worth.

James