Actinic bulbs and plants

hollyfish2000

hollyfish2000

Members
I just got a fabulous light -- a Coralife High Output T5 Lunar Aqualight -- for my planted peacock tank. I replaced the two 10K bulbs with 6K bulbs. I kept the two actinic bulbs to use as moonlights. Question -- is there any reason to leave the actinics on during the day with the 6Ks? Do they contribute anything to the plant growth?
 
hollyfish2000

hollyfish2000

Members
Perfect. Strangely enough, the fan was only activated with the switch for the two actinics grrrrrr. So I had to swap out the location of the bulbs, so it went on with the grow lights.

Do like this light, though. Very attractive and doesn't have those stinking legs that always fall off the coralight PC
 
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AndyNarwhal

Members
Actinics serve no purpose for plants.

Sorry Fran but that's not true. Actinics are great for growing plants. The light output of an Actinic directly matches the wavelengths in the blue/violet range that chlorophyll a absorbs in. Chlorophyll a is the primary pigment found in all photosynthetic organisms. When matched with a lamp that has good red light emission (the other peak absorbancy found in Chlorophyll) it can grow plants very well and more efficiently than a full spectrum lamp that wastes energy in the green/yellow wavelengths that plants do not use.

The downside is that actinics are not bright to the human eye and the aquarium looks dimmer. Add in a very red lamp and you get a strange purple look to the tank.

I would suggest keeping one of your actinics and replacing the other with a red lamp like a Coralife Colormax. That way you get a lot of blue/violet, a lot of Red, and a lot of green yellow (the 6700K) to make the tank look bright.

Andy
 
mscichlid

mscichlid

Founder
The actinic bulb thing has been drummed into my head from the beginning. But why is it no one uses them for the purpose of growing plants? Daylight - 6700k, 10,000k and MH seem to be the rule of things.
 
londonloco

londonloco

Members
I was surprised to see the above post also. It's a standard rule in planted tanks, actinics do nothing for plant growth. I actually do a combo on most of my planted tanks: 6700K and the pinkish plant grow bulb. I like the look and my plants light the light...
 
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AndyNarwhal

Members
It's one of those annoying myths that won't go away I think. I think because actinics aren't bright to the human eye that people think they can't be good for plants.

The actinics do need to be balanced with some red light though which by itself looks bad. A full spectrum combines peaks in blue, green/yellow, and red which looks nice but the energy in green /yellow is wasted.

I have a 29 gallon that is lit with 75% blue LED's and 25% 8000K LED's and I have had the best Crypt. wendtii growth I have ever had. The red plants do much better under heavy blue light than anything.

Andy
 
Hawkman2000

Hawkman2000

Members
I had a 29g with a eclipse hood. I had 1 Hagen PowerGlo and 1 ZooMed 420 actinic in it. My Java Fern EXPLODED in grown after the cycle stabilized. At one point I cleaned most of the java fern out and ended up with a tangled mess that filled a 5 gallon bucket. A also had enough green algae growth to keep my pleco happy and fat.

My cichlids have seemed to enjoy this lighting as well.

In my experience, plants like actinic. Brown algae does not. Therefor, I like actinic.
 
hollyfish2000

hollyfish2000

Members
I use the actinics in the evening as moonlights. I think it's very pretty and I can see my fish just fine. I use the two 6K for the plants on an 8-hour timer. They give me 2wpg for the tank, which is just what I want. Since I don't want more light - and am unclear how the actinic play in the low/medium/high light equation -- I'll keep things this way. I'm getting appropriate plant growth, but more importantly, not getting an algae invasion.
 
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