Adding Shimmer to my aquarium with my light setup

[nthang989]

Hi all,
I have a 90 gallons reef tank with some fish that's running the Aquatic Life 6 T5s standing on my tank. My bulbs are all True Lumen and they are two 12000K, two actinic Blue, and two purple. I would like to increase the amount of shimmer in my tank but unable to find anyway to do so.--I do see some shimmering right now, but not too obvious. I was thinking that the only way to get additional shimmering is to add an LED strip, but I would like to find one that doesn't get washed out by the T5s. I don't care much for the par value for the LEDs.--Better yet, none is better. Any suggestion would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[tkeracer619]

Hey welcome to the forums!

Shimmer comes from a point source light. With t5 this is not possible. Most who say they see shimmer are in fact seeing shadows that look similar to shimmer. Shimmer comes from a point source light where the water surface focuses a small amount of it giving lines of higher light that bounce around in the tank.

You can go with LED and you will get some shimmer but it won't be possible to make it look similar to a halide.

Go with a strip of blue LED and see how you like it. You will need to get one that does produce par or your t5 setup will wash it out.

 

[mm949]

lots & lots of surface agitation....

 

[nthang989]

I have a lot of surface agitation as I'm using the EcoTech Marine MP40W ES to create wave. The main thing is to look for any type/BRAND of light that would give me the desire result.

 

[Chris27]

Won't get it with fluorescents - you need either some very bright LED's or Metal Halides.

 

[nthang989]

I understand that I won't get it from Fluorescent. I'm basically need to know which BRAND of LED would be the best to get so that it won't wash-out when using at the same time as my 6 T5s as described.