Glo Fish lighting...what's the best way to bring out their color?

[Fish24907]

I have 6 glo fish and am wondering if anyone with any experience with them can tell me if i'd be better off going with Blue LED's or Blue Actinic Lights to appreciate their beautiful vivrant colors?


And also, i've been debating whether or not black lights could be harmful to my fish. If anyone has info on this I'd appreciate it. The fish look cool under a blacklight but im not going to use a blacklight if there's even a tiny chance it could harm my fish.

 

[adadkins1]

I would do blue actinic lights with a black background. I would find this to bring out the coloration of the fish and give a lot of contrast with the dark background.

Not really sure about the blacklight, but I know a lot of people will use them with Glofish.

 

[blert]

Mine looked nice under blue LEDs but the purple fish and blue fish were not very brilliant. Under actinic, the purple and blue fish "glow" nicely.

I hear black lights are not nice. Nobody likes to get bombed by too much UV.

 

[Fish24907]

Hey thanks Blert. I have Blue LEDs right now and my purple glo fish not being visible and brilliant is my biggest problem actually !

I'm glad to hear this may get better with actinic lights. I'll check this out.

 

[blert]

No problem. You can simulate actinic with LEDs but it will be expensive. Regular old blue LEDs will not cut it. I went from an LED fixture (with blue and white) to a t5ho (with one actinic and one white) and everything pops much nicer. The thing I miss the most is the shimmer effect. Looking into some low power LED moonlights to get it back.

 

[Fish24907]

No problem. You can simulate actinic with LEDs but it will be expensive. Regular old blue LEDs will not cut it. I went from an LED fixture (with blue and white) to a t5ho (with one actinic and one white) and everything pops much nicer. The thing I miss the most is the shimmer effect. Looking into some low power LED moonlights to get it back.

Oh wow, I have the shimmer effect in my tank (with the blue LEDs in it right now), but I had just assumed it was due to the water movement in my tank (i have a pretty strong filter with an overflow that creates a lot of water movement).

So you're saying the shimmer is due to the lights? Hmm...interesting.

Now i don't know what to do, LOL. Get the actinics so that i can actually see my purple glo fish, or stick with the blue LEDs for that cool shimmer effect.

 

[blert]

Yes, that is the LEDs doing that. Yes, it's caused by the ripple on the water surface. Metal halides have the same effect but are very hot. Nope, flouresents are incapable of the effect.

 

[Fish24907]

I see. So the LED light gets affected by ripples and water in a way that the flourescent light does not.

I'll probably end up trying both and seeing which is more important to me - the better glow effect on the glo fish or the cool shimmer effect.