Just a heads up. There seems to have been a glitch in the matrix. You have posted this 5 times. 
From wattage to lumens per liter and now we are at PAR?
When I first started out I had only heard and seen pictures of amazing aquariums and aquascapes. I took home a 60p with just 3 big rocks, some fine gravel and a few java ferns expecting to make a great design like on the pictures. Obviously it didn't take long before I figured out that I was severely lacking in everything. So I went out and joined local communities and placed way too many ads. Somehow I ended up with 5 kg of basically every rock and stone available, a piece of most the popular woods and a wide range of plants. Some of these plants looked astonishing on pictures, deep vivid red leaves and densely branched out stems. I took out everything and designed and made a new a scape. A week or so passed and the beautiful red plants all turned green and some even withered and started to die. I once again reached out to the local communities and that's where my problems really started.
The community explained how lighting influenced plant growth and coloration. Apparently stronger lights meant being able to grow red plants. Still, having no experience I asked how I would know if my lights were strong enough for the plants I had. "Take 0,5 watt per liter and you have low light, 0,75 for medium and 1 watt per liter for high light" Alright, 1 watt per liter meant that I could grow lush red plants. I bought lights with the correct amount of wattage and placed them above the aquarium. For a long time I believed that this was the golden rule for picking lights.
While my plants did get reddish, the problem was that I was growing more algae than plants. I figured that I was still doing something wrong in maintenance and started looking into fert regimes and co2 influence. It was only then that a guy a on YouTube mentioned something called lumen per liter. A whole new world opened up to me and I delved into studies, forums and videos that helped me understand this foreign concept. After weeks of researching I ended buying an HPL DIY lights with what I calculated was to give 65 lumens per liter. HPL DIY lights are big in Indonesia due to the lack of variety and quality in factory built lights. I started getting less algae and after a while I was "algae free" but my plants still didn't reach deep red coloration. I chalked it up to me making a mistake in the calculation somewhere or the diodes having less lumens than advertised.
This brings us to the here and now. Recently I figured out that lumens also do not cover everything when calculating what kind of lights I need. It is instead a steady PAR rating across the tank and an ideal 80 PAR reading at the carpet. Now I do not have the budget to buy a PAR meter unfortunately so I can do not much more then guess in that aspect. I did however also discover that I need a full color spectrum in the correct wavelengths and in the right Kelvin range!
So now I am suspecting that my 12,000 Kelvin white LED lights are not doing anything useful for my plants. I read a lot on the topics and watched quite a bit of videos covering the material as well. Still I have a lot questions that I cannot find a specific answer to and I was hoping that this tight-knit community could help fill in some blanks!
For example, I read that 5,000 to 6,500 Kelvin emulate the midday sunlight the best. Midday sunlight is basically what we strive for in the full spectrum lights. So does this mean that all white LED's that fall between those Kelvin levels are automatically full spectrum?
I found that full spectrum lights come in blurple and pink next to the white. Apparently the white LED's are the least efficient when compared to the other 2 with blurple being the most efficient. While white lights are more visually pleasing to the eye they lose more of the useful lights. I believe this to be true as a lot of articles say the same, but how much do you really lose? Is it an significant amount or negligible?
I am planning to try and modify a light myself with the information I have and what I hope to learn from all of you. I will be a very standard light, aluminum heatsink, pcb heatsinks for the LED's stuck to the aluminum heatsink with thermal tape and thermal paste between the pcb and the LED. It will be a 60watt light with 60 diodes of 1 watt with 90 degree lenses and a frosted acrylic panel to disperse the light. I added a very simple drawing below of how I want to place the lights, any advice there would be greatly appreciated as well!
![1032855]()
Sorry for the long read and I want to thank you all in advance for all the help!
The community explained how lighting influenced plant growth and coloration. Apparently stronger lights meant being able to grow red plants. Still, having no experience I asked how I would know if my lights were strong enough for the plants I had. "Take 0,5 watt per liter and you have low light, 0,75 for medium and 1 watt per liter for high light" Alright, 1 watt per liter meant that I could grow lush red plants. I bought lights with the correct amount of wattage and placed them above the aquarium. For a long time I believed that this was the golden rule for picking lights.
While my plants did get reddish, the problem was that I was growing more algae than plants. I figured that I was still doing something wrong in maintenance and started looking into fert regimes and co2 influence. It was only then that a guy a on YouTube mentioned something called lumen per liter. A whole new world opened up to me and I delved into studies, forums and videos that helped me understand this foreign concept. After weeks of researching I ended buying an HPL DIY lights with what I calculated was to give 65 lumens per liter. HPL DIY lights are big in Indonesia due to the lack of variety and quality in factory built lights. I started getting less algae and after a while I was "algae free" but my plants still didn't reach deep red coloration. I chalked it up to me making a mistake in the calculation somewhere or the diodes having less lumens than advertised.
This brings us to the here and now. Recently I figured out that lumens also do not cover everything when calculating what kind of lights I need. It is instead a steady PAR rating across the tank and an ideal 80 PAR reading at the carpet. Now I do not have the budget to buy a PAR meter unfortunately so I can do not much more then guess in that aspect. I did however also discover that I need a full color spectrum in the correct wavelengths and in the right Kelvin range!
So now I am suspecting that my 12,000 Kelvin white LED lights are not doing anything useful for my plants. I read a lot on the topics and watched quite a bit of videos covering the material as well. Still I have a lot questions that I cannot find a specific answer to and I was hoping that this tight-knit community could help fill in some blanks!
For example, I read that 5,000 to 6,500 Kelvin emulate the midday sunlight the best. Midday sunlight is basically what we strive for in the full spectrum lights. So does this mean that all white LED's that fall between those Kelvin levels are automatically full spectrum?
I found that full spectrum lights come in blurple and pink next to the white. Apparently the white LED's are the least efficient when compared to the other 2 with blurple being the most efficient. While white lights are more visually pleasing to the eye they lose more of the useful lights. I believe this to be true as a lot of articles say the same, but how much do you really lose? Is it an significant amount or negligible?
I am planning to try and modify a light myself with the information I have and what I hope to learn from all of you. I will be a very standard light, aluminum heatsink, pcb heatsinks for the LED's stuck to the aluminum heatsink with thermal tape and thermal paste between the pcb and the LED. It will be a 60watt light with 60 diodes of 1 watt with 90 degree lenses and a frosted acrylic panel to disperse the light. I added a very simple drawing below of how I want to place the lights, any advice there would be greatly appreciated as well!
Sorry for the long read and I want to thank you all in advance for all the help!
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
Wow, you're right. I thought the thread wasn't posted at all. I kept getting error message as I tried to post it. I'll take down the other threads, thanks for letting me know!Just a heads up. There seems to have been a glitch in the matrix. You have posted this 5 times.
Factory made, off-the-shelves lights are incredibly limited here in Indonesia and even more so in Bali. We start at lights from "brands" such as Yamato on the lower end level and have Kandilla on the medium end level. The problem is that those are all incredibly cheap lights of which the medium end still only costs about 10 dollars because they are, at best, OEM level lights with no support center, website or additional information to be found on the company anywhere online. Then we immediately jump the very high end Twinstar SA model or Chihiros WRGB 2 that start at 250 dollars and are unfortunately way out of my budget. I'd love to buy the Chihiros at some point but would need to save up for quite a while to get one for all 3 tanks.
All my tanks are set up with full soil and mixed in with ADA Bacter 100 and Tourmaline BC. They are all running pressurized CO2 on 25mg/l, my drop checkers are nice and green as soon as the lights go on and stay that way throughout the day. I turn CO2 on 2 hours before I turn on the light and I turn it off an hour before lights out. The lighting period is 7 hours a day and I follow the EI dosing regime using macro and potassium 1 day and micro the next. I use Ferti One fertilizer because here too I am incredibly limited in options, available ferts here are either ferts from Indonesia or the ultra high-end ADA ferts. The tanks use RO water with Seachem Equilibrium to balance the GH/KH again.
I'll add some pictures below from my current tanks. The driftwood setup is still only a month old and is going through a diatom bloom so I'll use a picture from when I first set it up.
As you can see I do have some pretty good red in there but those very undemanding ludwigia and some Alternanthera Reineckii. The carpets are really struggling to grow in healthily and even simple plants, among red plants, like the hygrophila Polysperma and some Rotala are barely displaying red hues.
I just tried the calculator that attached, it seems to work quite well. This could definitely help get rough estimates for when I build the lights!
Yeah no worries, already mentioned him by name here and will let you know if something goes wrong again.
As a super mod and over a decade under your belt you must bursting with knowledge by now. Any advise for me on the lights?
A lot to unpack.
Yea high light and/or low nm spectrum (blue/deep blue/violet/uv) seem to encourage pigment formation.
Then you need enough red to "express" that pigment to you eye.
Amount of algae depends on how well the tank is balanced between light/CO2/Ferts.
I suggest you go through this a bit as a guide:
Lighting
The 2Hr Aquarist's definitive planted aquarium lighting guide, covering T5 vs. LED, K ratings, PAR values and spectrum charts. And, how to leverage lights for your aquascapes.
www.2hraquarist.com
To show the difference between creating pigments and showing pigments see #206
Tubes, leds ect. the spectral composition can drastically change your "perception" of red
as long as the pigments are present.
Share Your Bulb Combo Thread
A central place to see everyone's t5 bulb combos. Post a FTS with a label saying what bulb types from to back. PAR data is a bonus and can be listed if you have it. All the following FTS are taken with a LG V30 f1.6 ISO 100 exposure 1/80 WB 5000k. The 6 bulb combos are brighter then the 4 bulb...
www.plantedtank.net
so as to your DIY fixture (I assume that is a simple 55 diode circuit board for Bridgelux diodes.)
you may want to reconsider white diodes or RGB = white diodes..
A lot will depend on what you want it to look like..
White aren't the "least efficient" by much but white leds w/ blue plus yellow phosphors are the least "showy"
High CRI whites can give you a better natural look w/ out err "faking" colors.
Play with this a bit..and tell me more about your DIY light like drivers and channels.
SPECTRA
SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。
DIY and you can go way outside the box..
Sorry miscounted your orig board. Thought it was the "standard" 55 diode board like on the Vipaspectra and other Chinese black boxes..
Anyways for fun:
YOUR 60 diodes with corrections..Keep in mind these are just estimates.
Not sure what color choices you have but here is a bit wider pallette.
Yea keep in mind the "full spectrum" is usually royal blue emitter plus red phosphors..
You can use the full spectrum LEDs..
Lux to par..
Convert Lux to PPFD - Online Calculator | Waveform Lighting
Online calculator to convert illuminance (lux) to PPFD (micromoles per second per meter squared).
I honestly hope I'm not because I am grasping at straws at this point. I mentioned this in an earlier reply so I'll copy paste it here again to make it easier.
All my tanks are set up with full soil and mixed in with ADA Bacter 100 and Tourmaline BC. They are all running pressurized CO2 on 25mg/l, my drop checkers are nice and green as soon as the lights go on and stay that way throughout the day. I turn CO2 on 2 hours before I turn on the light and I turn it off an hour before lights out. The lighting period is 7 hours a day and I follow the EI dosing regime using macro and potassium 1 day and micro the next. I use Ferti One fertilizer because here too I am incredibly limited in options, available ferts here are either ferts from Indonesia or the ultra high-end ADA ferts. The tanks use RO water with Seachem Equilibrium to balance the GH/KH again.
Buying a Chihiros would be amazing but very far out of my budget, I have 3 tanks running and I can't spare 700 dollars to buy them.
At this point I spend hours upon hours researching CO2 influence, ferts, regimes and maintenance. I applied the knowledge I gathered to my tanks and even do a monthly full water parameter check at my LFS to see if I need to tweak my dosing regime. Still I have no luck growing lush carpets and bright colored lights, so lights are the only thing I can still think of that are not performing as needed.
I did read about the lux to par conversion but also read that it is very inaccurate? Have you ever tried to do the conversion and check it with a PAR meter? One of the biggest problems I find is that a lot articles mentioned some kind of conversion formula, product A being better or worse than B and so on. It bugs me that none of them mention how much better or how accurate the conversions are. Having a percentage rate on error margin would greatly influence our final calculations.
I know that a lot of pictures are either edited or made in just the right light but my red plants, outside of the Ludwigia, are displaying nothing but red hues. The majority of plants we get here come straight out of some else's tank or a plant farm. Though I read up on the plants I want before buying them so I can generally tell apart the emersed and submerged forms. My current lights have RGB in them as well just not as many as I'd like.
I know my writing and drawing is really bad but did you see the drawing? What do you think of that layout and the balance between the white and the RGB? I did base the drawing on the layout of the Chihiros WRGB 2 and the Twinstar SA.
To be very honest, I was never planning on using the blurple or the pink lights. I think they look really ugly. Was hoping to see if someone knows how much less efficient the white diodes are so I can adjust my layout and calculations. You already answered that by stating that those are facts from a bygone era so thank you for that, really appreciate it!
This is great! Thanks for all the information and links. I'll read through the articles and posts later as it is a lot to digest. The post from Hendy (#206) is a great reference point to show the difference and impact lights can have! I do not understand the Spektra link very well, is this used to create color combinations? I am guessing the idea is to have a good evenly balanced spectrum show up on the graph?A lot to unpack.
Yea high light and/or low nm spectrum (blue/deep blue/violet/uv) seem to encourage pigment formation.
Then you need enough red to "express" that pigment to you eye.
Amount of algae depends on how well the tank is balanced between light/CO2/Ferts.
I suggest you go through this a bit as a guide:
Lighting
The 2Hr Aquarist's definitive planted aquarium lighting guide, covering T5 vs. LED, K ratings, PAR values and spectrum charts. And, how to leverage lights for your aquascapes.
To show the difference between creating pigments and showing pigments see #206
Tubes, leds ect. the spectral composition can drastically change your "perception" of red
as long as the pigments are present.
Share Your Bulb Combo Thread
A central place to see everyone's t5 bulb combos. Post a FTS with a label saying what bulb types from to back. PAR data is a bonus and can be listed if you have it. All the following FTS are taken with a LG V30 f1.6 ISO 100 exposure 1/80 WB 5000k. The 6 bulb combos are brighter then the 4 bulb...
so as to your DIY fixture (I assume that is a simple 55 diode circuit board for Bridgelux diodes.)
you may want to reconsider white diodes or RGB = white diodes..
A lot will depend on what you want it to look like..
White aren't the "least efficient" by much but white leds w/ blue plus yellow phosphors are the least "showy"
High CRI whites can give you a better natural look w/ out err "faking" colors.
Yes I am suspecting that my current lights are creating a massive unbalance. Everything is set up to support high lights but the lights are now using:
45 diodes of 12,000 Kelvin white led
5 diodes of royal blue
5 diodes of deep red
5 diodes of green
The white LED's are definitely not full spectrum and their Kelvin levels are way too high as well. So I'm afraid that more than half of my lights are just for show and don't do very much for the plants. If this is correct, my tank is set up to support high lights but the lights themselves, even though they are 60 watt, are only giving enough useful radiation for a low light tank.
I take you didn't see the drawing or my handwriting is so bad no one but me can read it. I'll post it again here:
This is basically how I want the layout to be, full spectrum white around the outside with the RGB in the middle. It will have 60 Epistar diodes, those are best available diodes here, of 1 watt each spanning 5 rows, with each row having 12 diodes. It will run on a 36 watt and a 24 watt driver over 2 channels, allowing me to choose to run the light on either 36 watt, 24 watt or the full 60 watt. The middle 3 rows will be on 1 channel and the outter rows on the other channel. Though I won't actually run it on anything other than the full 60 watt. So I might change it to a 1 channel with a single 60 watt driver.
I don't have a certain preference on how I want the tank to look nor do I have the proper knowledge and experience to tweak the lights to that degree. So I will go for a more standard look that prioritized plant growth. As soon as I achieve good, lush plant growth and gain more knowledge and experience with lighting I do want to look into other options in terms of how lights can alter the perception of the eye.
The second graph? I can only see one graph. I did manage to get to work, I'm on Android as well I think, just added 33 6,5k daylights with 11 royal blue, 8 deep red and 6 green. I get this as a result but I don't actually know what this means.
Should I try to get as close to dotted line as possible?
You must have a "sun" checked on Any purple line I see is what is being used in the calculations.
Also in " setup" change the graph from REEF to FRESH .
Currently the dotted line is the spectrum at like 10 meters in the ocean .
BEAM is generally 90 or 120.
You should eventually get something like this:
You're right, I had "Sun" checkes in Item menu. Changed it to Cree and LED now and the graph changed to this.You must have a "sun" checked on Any purple line I see is what is being used in the calculations.
Also in " setup" change the graph from REEF to FRESH .
Currently the dotted line is the spectrum at like 10 meters in the ocean .
BEAM is generally 90 or 120.
You should eventually get something like this:
View attachment 1032886![]()
I tried to change it to fresh but stays stuck on reef for some reason. I still don't really know how to read this and what my goal should be. Was your graph an example or what I should strive for?
I took a look on your profile and you are definitely the man to talk to when it comes to DIY lights! Hope you don't mind me asking so many questions.You must have a "sun" checked on Any purple line I see is what is being used in the calculations.
Also in " setup" change the graph from REEF to FRESH .
Currently the dotted line is the spectrum at like 10 meters in the ocean .
BEAM is generally 90 or 120.
You should eventually get something like this:
View attachment 1032886![]()
I'm just the noisiest one..
What one wants is dependent on a number of factors and what is important is also err "personal"
Here is a pattern that covers most of the major factors.
Area 1 is where most find appealing.. sort of like the old growlux flourescent tubes
Area 2 is more reef like but still usable as this is where your current light falls.
Area 3 is a green enhanced region that is popular with say ADA tanks i.e heavy green centric.
CRI total is only the average of the first 8 bars.
It's becoming obsolete.
Tone is what you may see on a white wall and gives an overall picture of prominent wavelengths.
I won't produce a chart but this is what I meant by a ww/cw mix..
I picked plain blue over royal blue because rb is in the whites which you have a lot of.
Royal blues blue up a tank rather rapidly.
Mostly a matter of opinion.
Noisiest is fine if you can back it up.I'm just the noisiest one..
What one wants is dependent on a number of factors and what is important is also err "personal"
Here is a pattern that covers most of the major factors.
Area 1 is where most find appealing.. sort of like the old growlux flourescent tubes
Area 2 is more reef like but still usable as this is where your current light falls.
Area 3 is a green enhanced region that is popular with say ADA tanks i.e heavy green centric.
CRI total is only the average of the first 8 bars.
It's becoming obsolete.
Tone is what you may see on a white wall and gives an overall picture of prominent wavelengths.
View attachment 1032891
I won't produce a chart but this is what I meant by a ww/cw mix..
I picked plain blue over royal blue because rb is in the whites which you have a lot of.
Royal blues blue up a tank rather rapidly.
Mostly a matter of opinion.
By personal you mean the preferred lighting hues visible to the eye as per example from the post by Hendy you shared? That would make it difficult then... I have a vague idea of what I want. A balance between red and blue would be nice, as long as there is not too much green. When I started looking into color spectrum and the effect it has on growth I came across this study from the department of horticulture of the University of Michigan.
Apparently a 50% green based light fixture would give the best overall growth but I like dense planting so I am leaning most towards the even RBG lights.
After you shared the Spektra link I started looking into the color graph a lot more as well and found this graph.
They mentioned this to be one the best spectrums to strive for in terms of plant growth only. Do you think this correct? You make your own lights as well right? Do your graphs look similar to this, or does it come down to personal preference again?
You advised not to use Royal Blue as it colors up the tank blue pretty fast and it is included in the whites, of which I use a lot. Should I use less white in favor of RGB?
Also, what is your opinion on the frosted acrylic that many lights use? I want to use it because it is said they fully disperse the light but if you say it is unnecessary it save me a few bucks.
Reading back, those are a lot questions in a row. Sorry about that, just getting excited learning about this.
You can go down all sorts of rabbit holes chasing spectrum. Even adding IR.. BUT many of these effects are species dependent and terrestrials which live in a world that is backward to water plants..
Red = bright under water. B= dark.
Opposite of land plants
* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
myData fluencegreen.csv x1
----------------------------------------
* SIMULATION DATA
----------------------------------------
Luminous flux : 4,000 lm
Radiant flux : 12,489 mW
PPF : 57.6 umol/s
TCP : 4260 K
CRI : 77
λp : 448 nm
Color : #FFAB82
----------------------------------------
* PERFORMANCE @ 60cm & 90° (compulsory)
----------------------------------------
Irradiance : 11 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 3,536 lx
PPFD : 50.9 umol/m²/s
----------------------------------------
by SPECTRA 1.0β @ 1.023world
SPECTRA
SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。
I never said not to use a diffuser AFAICT.
Color blending can be an issue under certain circumstances..
My personal lights used mostly "native" 120 degree spread of the diode itself which is pretty well blended.
If one uses 90 degree lenses the best thing is to get it high enough to blend.
Diffusers are an art in themselves.
My "RGB" use a reflector and all colors inside.
7 small diodes inside a reflector.
My personal choice is never pure RGB. It works, grows stuff and is very punchy in color.
My own preference is DeepRedRoyalBlueCyanAmberLime.
BUT it is pretty much a Specialty and expensive to build.
No harm in borrowing from other fields.
Understanding RGBA vs. RGBW in Two Simple Steps
This is my lights currently. 14W each on full but technically most would dim the red channel (3 deep reds) a bit.
Another variation uses a 405 Violet in place of one deep red.
That puck is one of the the best color rendering at 100% I've built.
The violet 3w diodes is $8 US on it's own. I wasn't planning on using it but tried as a whim.
Unfortunately it is still a one of at the moment.
After all of this I'll still caution you on the fact that most spectrum choices are for you not the plants.
There are MINOR tradeoff between growth and color and look.
I ' don't chase red plants but most reds either come from intensity or genetics. There are tricks like nitrogen starvation that make some plants redder and possibly iron.
I prefer not to build lights that can't be adjusted..
I am still new to the whole lighting discussion so it's good that I also meet people that kind of go against flow of chasing only perfect spectrum. I also need to apologize, I found a lot of answers to the questions I asked you in the articles you send me.You can go down all sorts of rabbit holes chasing spectrum. Even adding IR.. BUT many of these effects are species dependent and terrestrials which live in a world that is backward to water plants..
Red = bright under water. B= dark.
Opposite of land plants
* MIXING LIST
----------------------------------------
myData fluencegreen.csv x1
----------------------------------------
* SIMULATION DATA
----------------------------------------
Luminous flux : 4,000 lm
Radiant flux : 12,489 mW
PPF : 57.6 umol/s
TCP : 4260 K
CRI : 77
λp : 448 nm
Color : #FFAB82
----------------------------------------
* PERFORMANCE @ 60cm & 90° (compulsory)
----------------------------------------
Irradiance : 11 W/m²/s
Illuminance : 3,536 lx
PPFD : 50.9 umol/m²/s
----------------------------------------
by SPECTRA 1.0β @ 1.023world
The fluence Greenhouse is a very warm spectrumSPECTRA
SPECTRA can perform the optical simulation of many required for coral breeding. SPECTRAはサンゴ飼育に必要な多くの光学シミュレーションを行う事が可能です。spectra.1023world.net
I never said not to use a diffuser AFAICT.
Color blending can be an issue under certain circumstances..
My personal lights used mostly "native" 120 degree spread of the diode itself which is pretty well blended.
If one uses 90 degree lenses the best thing is to get it high enough to blend.
Diffusers are an art in themselves.
My "RGB" use a reflector and all colors inside.
7 small diodes inside a reflector.
My personal choice is never pure RGB. It works, grows stuff and is very punchy in color.
My own preference is DeepRedRoyalBlueCyanAmberLime.
BUT it is pretty much a Specialty and expensive to build.
No harm in borrowing from other fields.
Understanding RGBA vs. RGBW in Two Simple Steps
This is my lights currently. 14W each on full but technically most would dim the red channel (3 deep reds) a bit.
Another variation uses a 405 Violet in place of one deep red.
That puck is one of the the best color rendering at 100% I've built.
The violet 3w diodes is $8 US on it's own. I wasn't planning on using it but tried as a whim.
Unfortunately it is still a one of at the moment.
View attachment 1032904
View attachment 1032905
After all of this I'll still caution you on the fact that most spectrum choices are for you not the plants.
There are MINOR tradeoff between growth and color and look.
I ' don't chase red plants but most reds either come from intensity or genetics. There are tricks like nitrogen starvation that make some plants redder and possibly iron.
I can't really see what lights you used in the Spektra Data but I can see the coloration.. It's pretty orange, how does that translate to real lighting and we see it. I played around in Spektra with the combinations but Hendy used but the colors I get from Spektra are very different than the colors you see on the pictures.
I tried a few combinations of colors including multiple blues and reds, royal blue and blue as red and deep red, in the same fixture. I never thought of adding amber the mix, I wanted to try Cyan as well but I can't seem to find it here so I stayed away from that for now. Mixed cold, neutral and warm whites in there too and basically got this.
It seems very balanced in the spectrum while slightly leaning to Red to bring out the colors in my red plants a bit more. The end color is leaning more to a slight darkish pink. If I hang my lights at about 25 cm/10" above the tank, how pink will my tank really get? I checked current light fixture,and I get basically get this.
The color of my tank however looks much lighter and more towards white than purple-ish blue.
If diffusers are art in themselves it probably won't end very well if I just buy a random 2mm plate of frosted acrylic will it?
What kind of light are you using? I've mostly seen strips, bars and t5 fixtures but never light like that..
Do you mean this in a way that you prefer t5 and DIY/custom LED fixtures where can easily take off and replace lights? Or do you actually prefer the diodes that can change colors?
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
