Blue Lights

can you use blue lights with a fresh water tank? i find the blue looks more "light / clean" but how would it affect the fish? could you run one blue one normal light?

 

it shouldnt affect your fish in anyway. you can use blue lights as moonlights or you can mix it up with some whith (10,000K or lower) to give you a nice crisp clean look to the tank. blue light will also inhance the colour of your fish. in marine aquariums we use the high specturm blue light (20,000 K) to colour up corals etc

 

i always use atleast 1 blue tube when setting up a tank, gives that nice white clear look, you might have some algea issues though in the beginning

 

Care to elaborate?

 

when u mix between the very high colour spectrum (blue), and a low colour spectrum you eliminate that yellow look to the tank and the colour actually becomes a nice clean crisp white. you could take a bulb in the middle spectrum but u just get the clear light without getting the benifits of growth that the low spectrum bulb gives you.

hope this helps

 

I meant regarding the Algae.

You made it sound like a blue light would cause more algae growth.

 

i read that as well, apparently algae favours blue light, but i cant find a source to confirm it

i would like to add some blue light to my setup as well when funds permit, to get a bit of the yellow/red colour to fade out in the display, which makes do you guys suggest?

marine, or is there a normal light tube in shops with the same effect?

 

Well after Altum hooked me up with the new light-unit, I thought of putting the spare blue (marine) light I have on the old ballast, but a quick glimpse of the 3 together made the Blue one almost unnoticeable, but ever so slightly more dull, so I took it out again.

Ferryman I have a Philips tube which I got as a swop for the Malawi's, although it says Marine I'm sure you could get it in a normal shop.

 

thanks =) I'll nose around some shops...

 

If you were in Cape Town I would have just given you this one.

 

Hi Guys

well back on the subject, iv ordered new lights for my little Jebo 338, ill have one blue 8w and a white 8w, iv taken the "sunken ship" and "cave" crap plastic things out the tank and put some awsome rocks in, found that what i put in wasn't nearly enough so ill get some more rock tomorrow. then im going to pull the 2 angels and the shark out and start off with some cichlids! how many do you think i can put in? i remember at one stage i had about 8 in and they were happy.