Can you put all-actinic lighting on a reef?

[Anonymous]

If not, can someone explain to me why not? Thanks for the info...

Peace,

Chip

 

[dmentnich]

I do not know for sure that you cannot but after looking at the graphs showing the wave length of different bulbs I would think that if you wanted to keep anything that was dependant on the light you would need to use other bulbs in addition to actinic. The actinic have wave lengths of 390-490 nanometers while all others have the range from 350-700. I would assume you need to have the high range as well to simulate the sun.

Check out this link for the graphs of actinic and fluorescent tubes. http://www.jlaquatics.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?page=bulbs-fl.shtml&&cart_id=

and this one for MH spectrum http://www.jlaquatics.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?page=bulbs-mh.shtml&&cart_id=

-Danny

 

[Anonymous]

Yes but it will cost you!

Actinic lighting puts out very little intensity for the given wattage. When compared to a daylight bulb the lumen/par output is roughly 3:1 in favor of the daylights. So to get the same intensity over the tank you would need to have 3X as many bulbs i.e. take a 75 gallon (48x18x18) aquarium with 4 VHO's (all 50/50's). To get the same intensity with Actinics you would need 12 Actinics over that tank - or instead of 440W's you would need 1320W's of Actinic bulbs. As you can see the cost is prohibative.

Also the tank would be so ridiculously blue I doubt you would enjoy it.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, how do all these people get such color out of their tanks without the tons of actinic? Just curious...I see a lot of fantastic tank pics on this board, and mine never seems to measure up as far as color.

Peace,

Chip

 

[Danny B]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by marillion:
<strong>If not, can someone explain to me why not? Thanks for the info...

Peace,

Chip</strong><hr></blockquote>

Hey there. No scientific explanation but I did see a huge, beautiful reef tank in a sushi restaurant really made to look bad by all actinic lighting (unless you like only your brightest creatures to be visible). It was sparsely stocked with made it look even more lack-luster. Just my opinion.

- Dan

 

[Ben1]

This would make a nice deep water enviroment but not a good shallow reef. If you plan on only keeping deep water coral and fish, this would be ok as these animals have adapted to more light in the blue range.