MarsRover
New member
Hey Folks,
so i have done some searching and haven't found much, recent, conclusive information regarding actinic only lighting for tanks.
I know of some EXCELLENT LFS's that have some of there coral tanks as actinic (or at least looks like it.... haven't confirmed what bulbs they are running) only and their corals are full and appear happy.
So it has come time for me to switch out some bulbs on my tank at work, it is a small <10 gal Chinese rimless tank established on 23 March 2016.
I am running two, 9" dual T5 Coralife 24Watt (each) fixtures. Thats a total of 48watts. Since, i have been running the stock bulbs (1 actinic and 1 10k in each).
I have a red quadricolor that will not stay on it's designated side of the tank. I have tried encouraging it with lighting before, which has worked a few times for a while but it is persistent now to going where the long tentacle leather i have on top is. I have decided to try an experiment....
This is far from a rigorously empirical scientific test, but hey, lets see what happens for me. I see some debate online regarding this topic and i figured i'd try something myself.
Today i decided to replace one fixture with actinics only and leave the other 50/50.
Going to document what goes on in the tank each week leaving it like this for a while.
Two pictures attached:
1. from about 2 weeks ago
2. Day one picture of actinic half tank
Constructive comments welcome
so i have done some searching and haven't found much, recent, conclusive information regarding actinic only lighting for tanks.
I know of some EXCELLENT LFS's that have some of there coral tanks as actinic (or at least looks like it.... haven't confirmed what bulbs they are running) only and their corals are full and appear happy.
So it has come time for me to switch out some bulbs on my tank at work, it is a small <10 gal Chinese rimless tank established on 23 March 2016.
I am running two, 9" dual T5 Coralife 24Watt (each) fixtures. Thats a total of 48watts. Since, i have been running the stock bulbs (1 actinic and 1 10k in each).
I have a red quadricolor that will not stay on it's designated side of the tank. I have tried encouraging it with lighting before, which has worked a few times for a while but it is persistent now to going where the long tentacle leather i have on top is. I have decided to try an experiment....
This is far from a rigorously empirical scientific test, but hey, lets see what happens for me. I see some debate online regarding this topic and i figured i'd try something myself.
Today i decided to replace one fixture with actinics only and leave the other 50/50.
Going to document what goes on in the tank each week leaving it like this for a while.
Two pictures attached:
1. from about 2 weeks ago
2. Day one picture of actinic half tank
Constructive comments welcome
