help reduce light level

[Mebbid]

So I am transferring my planted betta tank to my 20g that used to be my reef tank. The only problem is, that even running half the lights on my led system and raising it as high as I can, it still looks way too bright.

So I am now turning to you guys for some creative ideas on how to reduce the light level

 

[Brookster123]

window screen? Darker substrate? Auto glass tint on a versa top??

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[PB_Smith]

use CFL's instead

 

[Cthulhu]

Add CO2 and be glad you have strong lighting?
Then the biggest problem will be that reef lighting has too much blue and it looks awful in freshwater, particularly with plants. So if you can tamper with your fixture you may want to remove some blue LEDs and replace them with green and red ones.

 

[Mebbid]

Add CO2 and be glad you have strong lighting?
Then the biggest problem will be that reef lighting has too much blue and it looks awful in freshwater, particularly with plants. So if you can tamper with your fixture you may want to remove some blue LEDs and replace them with green and red ones.

Heh I already have my high tech 40b A second high tech tank would just be overkill.

The nice thing about the fixture I have is that the blues and whites are on different channels, I can just turn the blues off. The whites alone look surprisingly nice.

 

[Mebbid]

window screen? Darker substrate? Auto glass tint on a versa top??

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I tried egg crate but that didn't do much other than put a hideous looking cross hatch pattern on the substrate from the shadows.

I'd be worried about tinting changing the wavelength of the light too much.

 

[PB_Smith]

yeah but is the light the proper spectrum/temp for freshwater plants?
Plants want about 5500k-7000k, aren't most LED's for reefs up around 10,000k-12,000k.
Honestly if it were me I would go with CFL's at 6500k.
2-3 bulbs would be more than sufficient for that size/depth.

 

[Cthulhu]

On my 95g I am also using my old reef lighting, 2 Maxspect G2 160W. The blue are on a separate channel too, but even then the color temperature is too high, I feel it doesn't look as good as it should, the colors look a but dull. Especially compared to my 20g which has DIY LED lighting that I configured to get a high CRI, and my god it is so very incredible how much the colors come to life! Before I got this lighting I never thought it could make such a huge difference in the way the tank looks. So for my 95g I am going to replace the LEDs in the blue channel with green and red, possible some warm white, I have yet to decide the exact mix. I use BuildMyLed's tool to help me find a mix that will give me a high CRI and a color temperature I want.

 

[Cthulhu]

yeah but is the light the proper spectrum/temp for freshwater plants?
Plants want about 5500k-7000k, aren't most LED's for reefs up around 10,000k-12,000k.

Color temperature and spectrum are different things. Color temperature is only the way we see the color on a scale of red to blue. Reefs look better with a high color temperature, freshwater looks better with a lower one.

Plants and zooxanthellae (corals symbiotic algea) have the same types of chlorophyll so they use the same parts of the spectrum for photosynthesis.

 

[Mebbid]

yeah but is the light the proper spectrum/temp for freshwater plants?
Plants want about 5500k-7000k, aren't most LED's for reefs up around 10,000k-12,000k.
Honestly if it were me I would go with CFL's at 6500k.
2-3 bulbs would be more than sufficient for that size/depth.

It really depends on the fixture. Mine was made with 6500k white bulbs.

 

[Mebbid]

On my 95g I am also using my old reef lighting, 2 Maxspect G2 160W. The blue are on a separate channel too, but even then the color temperature is too high, I feel it doesn't look as good as it should, the colors look a but dull. Especially compared to my 20g which has DIY LED lighting that I configured to get a high CRI, and my god it is so very incredible how much the colors come to life! Before I got this lighting I never thought it could make such a huge difference in the way the tank looks. So for my 95g I am going to replace the LEDs in the blue channel with green and red, possible some warm white, I have yet to decide the exact mix. I use BuildMyLed's tool to help me find a mix that will give me a high CRI and a color temperature I want.

I've actually been using a diy led fixture on my 10g for the past year and a half I'm going to be redoing it and switching out some of the bulbs to use it in a Pico reef.

 

[PB_Smith]

It really depends on the fixture. Mine was made with 6500k white bulbs.

then window screen would also be my thought.

 

[Mebbid]

What do you guys think of floating plants?

 

[Brookster123]

Red root floaters!!!

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[Cthulhu]

What do you guys think of floating plants?

I think that could be a very good idea. That would be the only plants to get very strong lights, but being at the surface I guess they can get CO2 from the air.

 

[evil Nick]

black a few lights out with electrical tape?

 

[Fishperson]

If you put the part that casts shade up high, the shadow will be more spread out and not defined.

But floating plants sound much better.