Yet another lighting thread *Amazing!*

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I just got home and the tank looks AMAZING! Whoever said to get Actinic and 50/50 lights was right! The Acei colors are distinctive, they used to just blend together. You can tell they are purple! The Electric Blue Hap is REALLY shimmering. The Cobalts look like night and day with the old lighting. There is only 1 word to describe it: Amazing! I didn't know that those fish could look that good without dropping $500 for lighting. The light is evenly distributed thoughout the tank. It is just as bright at the bottom as it is the top. I am just so excited. I can't wait to take pics and post them. I will have to resort to James' crappy digital. The tank just glows. I can't give one complaint on this light set. Thumbs up :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:
 
OH! And I also just realized that I had a female AND male of the Pseudotropheus Daktari . The lighting was so bad that I thought that I just had 2 females. :D
 
The fish are blurry, but you can get a general idea of how bright the tank is now compared to how it used to be. The old tank pic was taken with a better camera, so that's why it is more crisp and clear.

What do you guys think?
 

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Fishy...that tank is gorgeous. You're absolutely right, there is a marked difference in the before and after pics.

I won't take credit for being the one who suggested that lighting set up :wink:
But if you check the thread...you might see a resemblance.
 
Thank you SO much JC. Again, you are right! :D I can't wait to get some good pics of the fish now. Just if they would sit still for a minute I could get some great shots. Then again, I'm using a 6 year old Kodak 2.0 Megapixel crappy cam. My camera phone probably takes better pics. I'll have to borrow my dads cam again and take some shots. The "Before" pic was taken with his cam. You can REALLY tell the difference.

You guys are all SO great. :) Just if I had enough Kudo's to give you all 100!
 
C'mon Fishy...that really isn't necessary. What is truly important was that you researched this subject, got all the information you needed and improved the look of your tank (crappy digicam didn't hide anything). The tank looks stellar! :D
 
Thanks. I am really happy with how it turned out. When Tony Starks got his 50/50 bulbs and he said that he was returning them because they looked like crap, I got worried. I thought, Oh no! But when I walked into the house tonight, the fish tank lights were turned off and I walked in front of the tank and turned them on and it was like POW! It just radiates. It makes it look like a display tank at a nice fish store. The decor still has to be moved around because we're putting the driftwood in the tank this weekend (WOOOHOOO!), but the fish just look amazing. It really makes you truly appreciate all the work that you do on the tank to see something so beautiful belong to you. Ya know? Ok, I hope I'm not getting all sappy and corny.
 
Keep a very close eye on your water params, esp. nitrate, because you may find some algae issues arising with your new lights. I agree about the actinic bringing out colors - putting one of my unidentified Africans under actinic light went a long way to helping me identify her, because I had no idea she had midnight blue in her. It also makes my praecox rainbows show off their blue so much better.

Definitely a "night and day" difference in your tank - wow!
 
The tank looks great FF :) I run some actinics in my ARLC tank for the very same reason - they bring out such incredible colors in the fish, espeicially the blue ones. Very nice :)
 
Thanks guys. I appreciate your comments. I'll keep a close eye on the algae, but I don't know if we will have any issues with it. We've never had algae on this tank. And I know that we just tripled the wattage, but it's still under 1 wpg. What should I be watching for TG with the Nitrates?
 
FF, that is indeed one good looking tank! I'm so jealous!! I would also be interested in the algae situation. Keep us posted!

You have some great looking fish, and now you can see them even better.
 
I now have .8 Watts per gal. It is a 150 gal tank with 120 (2 50/50 bulbs and 1 Actinic bulb) Watts of light. BUT, doesn't Actinic light not count towards the Watts? I read something like that in another thread, but can't remember what was said. Or maybe that's just for plants.
 
It does not count towards the watts per gallon even in the case of algae.. The light is
not useable by FW plant life. You should not have a problem with algae at all at those
levels! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
Thanks GM. I have three pleco's working hard in the tank to keep it spotless. Its kind of funny beacuse we are battling algae in all of the tanks besides the 5 gal and 150 gal. The smallest and largest tank. I think the Pleco's are doing their jobs VERY well. Either that or there just isn't enough light to produce algae. Could that be why we just dont' have any in the tank?
 
It seems like you dont have enough light to grow algae with this current light setup.. If
you want to keep the pleco's in there I would suggest you supplement there diet with
some vegetables and or some of the algae wafers.. :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
They get 3 Algae wafers every night (normally the Yellow labs find one and eat it themselves) and once or twice a week they get slices of zuc instead of the wafers. They are very well fed. I never just let them eat off of algae. I did that with my first pleco and he died 5 days later. Apparently not enough algae. I've learned my lesson after the first one.
 
Plants and FW algae both use chlorophyll A and B for photosynthesis which get their energy mainly from red and green visible spectrum light but also utilize blue spectrum light to a somewhat lesser degree. Actinic lighting is focused mainly in the blue spectrum so it is not ideal for photosynthesis. That said, it does provide some photosynthetically active radiation but not much.

There seems to be a common misconception that actinic lighting selects for algae but this likely arises from its use to grow macroalgae in salwater tanks. Since both FW plants and algae use the same types of chlorophyll for photosynthesis, actinic lighting neither selects for plants nor algae, its use is mainly cosmetic :)
 
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