Enhancing fish/plant color and beauty

Yes you could get one or two of those bulbs alongside the 6500k bulbs but I think you need to focus more on feeding a better quality food and even heavily planting the aquarium to make the fish's color come out more. As for the plants color? Better substrate and maybe some ferts

I definitely understand where you're coming from Mitch, and I try to take good care of everything. I feed well and have eco complete and EI dose dry ferts. But no matter how well you do, the physical properties of light can affect how your tank looks. That's what Im wondering about. I'm doing all that work to make everything look good, and I want to see if I can get the lights to make it all look even better

Get a bulb that looks purple or reddish. Those bring out fish color. They help a little on plants but not much

Many fish are somewhat yellow to orange, and a bulb that is too much blue will make them look really bad. For these fish a 'warm' bulb would help.

jamesbaptista said:

I definitely understand where you're coming from Mitch, and I try to take good care of everything. I feed well and have eco complete and EI dose dry ferts. But no matter how well you do, the physical properties of light can affect how your tank looks. That's what Im wondering about. I'm doing all that work to make everything look good, and I want to see if I can get the lights to make it all look even better

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I know what you mean, it's like lighting a stage. Certain lights that are great for plants can wash out fish colors and so on. Thats why lighting choices are -along with K or par values- broken down into color-enhancing, fish-only, plant growth- to make it easier for the average person to choose. IMHO, the old Hagen Powerglo flourescents (full spectrum? 18000K) are the most flattering to a planted tank. I still run 'em on on my 29g, morning and evening (for my enjoyment) along with some 10000k midday (for the plants and yes, 6700 is optimal). I'm hoping to see an 18000K LED one day :icon_wink

jamesbaptista said:

I definitely understand where you're coming from Mitch, and I try to take good care of everything. I feed well and have eco complete and EI dose dry ferts. But no matter how well you do, the physical properties of light can affect how your tank looks. That's what Im wondering about. I'm doing all that work to make everything look good, and I want to see if I can get the lights to make it all look even better

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Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything. Sometimes its hard to tell how much experience one has when communicating online with them lol

I do agree with you on how different light affects the look of the tank. the pinkish bulbs do help enhance everything for sure, but they hinder plant growth(not sure how much however). But sometimes its all a matter of personal preference. Some people seem to think the color enhancing bulb is not natural looking, but some love it. I love the slight yellow of 6,500k(somewhat like an amazon river. Well kind of....) bulbs but some hate it and opt for 10,000k bulbs. So its a complicated topic for sure.