Balancing a light visually

757 Views 7 Replies 4 Participants Last post by Bunsen Honeydew, Apr 5, 2017

Bunsen Honeydew

Discussion Starter · Apr 4, 2017

I recently bought a 36" Beamswork LED light for my planted 92 corner aquarium, and while the light is doing a decent job at giving me decent plant growth, the light has a bit of a green tint to it. Couple this with PFS and leaching tannins, and the light is not as attractive as it could be. There is plenty of room on top of the tank for another light (or lights), so I was wondering if there was a specific light that I could possibly add that would even out the appearance in the tank? Would adding a light that is stronger in the blue help? Anyone have any experience here?

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Dman911

· #2 · Apr 4, 2017

I can't see why it would add a green tinge to the water. Are you sure its not the tannins and possibly a green water algae bloom? with the change in light this may be possible. Purigen will remove tannins from the water but I would recommend putting up a picture to help people get an idea of what it looks like.

Dan

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elusive77

· #3 · Apr 4, 2017

I have a Beamswork and I agree the light is not very pleasant to look at by itself. I also have a Finnex Planted + 24/7. Since it is fully color adjustable, you can play with different combinations of colors until you get something that looks good. That's what I did. I found that the combination of the sunny mode on the 24/7 along with the Beamswork made it look pretty good. So I would look for something that allows you to adjust the color.

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Bunsen Honeydew

Discussion Starter · #4 · Apr 4, 2017

Dman911 said:
I can't see why it would add a green tinge to the water. Are you sure its not the tannins and possibly a green water algae bloom? with the change in light this may be possible. Purigen will remove tannins from the water but I would recommend putting up a picture to help people get an idea of what it looks like.

Dan

The light itself has a green tint to it. It looks worse as the tannins build up.

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jeffkrol

· #5 · Apr 4, 2017 (Edited)

Bunsen Honeydew said:
I recently bought a 36" Beamswork LED light for my planted 92 corner aquarium, and while the light is doing a decent job at giving me decent plant growth, the light has a bit of a green tint to it. Couple this with PFS and leaching tannins, and the light is not as attractive as it could be. There is plenty of room on top of the tank for another light (or lights), so I was wondering if there was a specific light that I could possibly add that would even out the appearance in the tank? Would adding a light that is stronger in the blue help? Anyone have any experience here?

any inexpensive high K w/ colors LED will improve this toning..
Common on 6500k lower CRI LED's..
you would get used to it eventually..

finnex stingray or beamswork ea fspec..
https://www.amazon.com/Beamswork-Ti...UTF8&qid=1491337084&sr=8-3&keywords=beamswork
not the right size but an idea..The 10000k and actinic diodes will cut it down quite a bit..
4 green shouldn't add to it..
If you are worried, any of the marine centric are quite blue rich..

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/1079297-72-length-what-light-set-up.html
post #9 shows a tank that added 5050smd RGB strips to the light........

BTW: There is an oddball Beamswork (roseate) that uses this concept.. RGB diodes w/ green almost off..
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GW1VKL8/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_1_w

kind of like the old "pink" tubes..

If you want to "guarantee" a look you need to add a color adjustable array..
Either RGB strips or something like this:
http://current-usa.com/aquarium-led-lights/satellite-led-fixtures/satellite-freshwater-led-plus/

though the roseate or any strip light can at least be "strength adjusted" w/ a cheap $5 hack into the power cord and a PWM led dimmer.

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Bunsen Honeydew

Discussion Starter · #6 · Apr 4, 2017

elusive77 said:
I have a Beamswork and I agree the light is not very pleasant to look at by itself. I also have a Finnex Planted + 24/7. Since it is fully color adjustable, you can play with different combinations of colors until you get something that looks good. That's what I did. I found that the combination of the sunny mode on the 24/7 along with the Beamswork made it look pretty good. So I would look for something that allows you to adjust the color.

I have looked into those. I could get an $80 30" planted+ 24/7 that would fit behind the $60 36" Beamswork. Do you happen to know roughly where you adjusted to? I was tempted to just add some of the adjustable LED tape lights and add them to the inside of the hood that I haven't built yet.

Bump:

jeffkrol said:
any inexpensive high K w/ colors LED will improve this toning..
Common on 6500k lower CRI LED's..
you would get used to it eventually..
finnex stingray or beamswork ea fspec..
https://www.amazon.com/Beamswork-Ti...UTF8&qid=1491337084&sr=8-3&keywords=beamswork
not the right size but an idea..The 10000k and actinic diodes will cut it down quite a bit..
4 green shouldn't add to it..
If you are worried, any of the marine centric are quite blue rich..

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/1079297-72-length-what-light-set-up.html
post #9 shows a tank that added 5050smd RGB strips to the light........

Thanks Jeff, I'll look into that.

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elusive77

· #7 · Apr 4, 2017

Bunsen Honeydew said:
Do you happen to know roughly where you adjusted to? .

I tried a bunch of different custom configurations with the RGB leds. In the end I just used the "Sunny" preset. It was pretty much the same as the best custom one I came up with, and it made it easy to switch between other modes. I think it mainly uses the white leds and the reds. The red is really what made the colors look better for me. And I love using the moonlight preset in the evening. It is great for viewing outside of your main photoperiod to avoid algae and it makes the fish and plants look awesome.

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Bunsen Honeydew

Discussion Starter · #8 · Apr 5, 2017

Thanks.

I was messing with my light today during a water change and rearranging a few plants, and realized a simple solution to most of my problem. The light has a 3 way switch; the positions are off, just the actinic blues for moon light, and both the blue and white (slight green tint). I made the mistake of assuming that the compatible timer worked the same way, thinking that the white setting was turning on both the white and blue LEDs, and the blue turning on just the blue. I was wrong. The white setting is just the whites, hence exacerbating the problem. When the blues are on too, it is about 75% better. I now have the blue mode set to be on for the daylight and night cycle, so hopefully it will look better. That's a big DERP for me. I may still add additional lights to better light the tank though. It's tough for a rectangle to adequately cover a quarter cylinder.

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