Pink vs. Blue Bulb

[2Shi]

What's the difference between pink and blue bulbs? What would be a better choice for a heavily planted tank?

[freph]

The wavelengths are moreso what you're interested in. Visible light color to us doesn't tend to matter a ton. Plants flourish under green and red wavelengths (I think blue too, but I'm not sure to what extent). Good choices are Daylight/Midday for whites and something like Aquaflora (pink) bulbs for more bringing out colors and providing more red and green spectrum.

[bikinibottom]

Chlorophyll absorbs everything BUT green -- that's why plants look green when you look at them, because green is not being absorbed and is being reflected back to you.

[Jeffww]

you want red and blue basically. Your typical white fluorescent has a good deal of blue and a little red. Same could be said for almost EVERY light source out there right now. Just look at the graphs. That said you shouldn't worry about it too much.

Even red LEDs aren't in the right red spectrum unless you pick up some specialty stuff like a phillips 650nm lamp.

[Aquatic Delight]

Originally Posted by freph

The wavelengths are moreso what you're interested in. Visible light color to us doesn't tend to matter a ton. Plants flourish under green and red wavelengths (I think blue too, but I'm not sure to what extent).

theres a couple threads out here about people having very good growth under all blue lighting. i'm not sure how sustained their growth is, but it seems to be pretty good at the time of the posting.

[Bluek24a4]

I am having good growth with the pink flora bulb and the 460nm actinic blue bulb.

[funkman262]

Blue light is more important for vegetative growth while red light is more important for flowering.

[BBradbury]

Originally Posted by 2Shi

What's the difference between pink and blue bulbs? What would be a better choice for a heavily planted tank?

Hello 2...

I've always used 6500K, light blue bulbs. The 6500K bulbs come closest to natural daylight at 5500K. These are recommended for planted tanks.

B

[AirstoND]

1) Pink is actually a lavender/light purple resulting from mixing blue and red phosphors needed for green growth and flowering respectively.

Blue is heavy in ~400-500nm wavelength spectra

2) Use both