Salty lights in a planted tank

[shift]

Is there any negative effect of using salt water T5's on a fresh water tank? I like the bluey hue it gives off.

I'm getting a 84 Gallon 2' tank that comes with a hanging light fixture. (2 tubes 50 ish watts each). I also purchased a second used matching fixture allowing me to use up to 4 bulbs in total. I was thinking or running salt bulbs in the second fixture to change the lighting (or possibly just use it for night viewing)

IS there any postivie or negative effects of doing this on a planted tank?

[Steve001]

I would think perhaps too much blue light ? Aren't those salt water bulbs meant to be predominant in blue light for corals? Plants need reddish-red wavelengths, too grow there best. You may be able to find out by looking for the spectral distribution of this T5 by looking for the particular brands spectrum.

[Aquatic Delight]

i'm using a salt LED light on my cray tank, and all it grows is duckweed and algae.

but i'll +1 to what steve said.

[micheljq]

Originally Posted by shift

Is there any negative effect of using salt water T5's on a fresh water tank? I like the bluey hue it gives off.

I'm getting a 84 Gallon 2' tank that comes with a hanging light fixture. (2 tubes 50 ish watts each). I also purchased a second used matching fixture allowing me to use up to 4 bulbs in total. I was thinking or running salt bulbs in the second fixture to change the lighting (or possibly just use it for night viewing)

IS there any postivie or negative effects of doing this on a planted tank?

That would give 4 - 50 watts tube for 84 gallons tank?

First concern : 2 tubes would be enough, with 4 tubes you would have to run CO2 probably. Others can confirm if I am mistaken.

Second concern : You must know what is the color temperature in kelvins of the tubes. There is a good chance that those salt water tubes have 14000K or even more, which is not the best for growing freshwater aquatic plants. You may have to replace them with tubes around 6500-10000K for example.

If you are lucky, maybe some tubes have 10000K which is not bad.

Michel.

[shift]

The tank i'm buying currently has discuss and should have standard planted friendly bulbs

the secondary fixture i got last night came with
2x 54W Actinic Plus with light more in the blue spectrum


1x Power glo, 1800k i believe
1x life glo - 6700k and good for fresh

[exv152]

Algae might be an issue witht the actinics. You might still be able to grow the plants but aesthetically it doesn't look good to the human eye. Full specturm bulbs give off a nicer look for planted tanks, you tend to get all the colours popping out, whereas the actinics and 10k tend to wash out the colours.

[shift]

Good to know.. well i will just shelve the extra fixture for now until i decided to either try co2 or salt one day

Thanks for the info

[shift]

Wow, i understand how 4 is over kill. I took the spare fixture i bought and put in the 6700k and 1800k bulb.. and wholy smokes is that thing bright. I set it on top of my 12G edge to see and the poor fish must have been blinded!

[Neatfish]

I tried corallife 10k bulbs all I got was algae and the light did not look good in fw. Plants did not look happy so I put back the old light.