4K Halide for Fuge?

[scsinet]

I got my hands on a Lithonia 70W metal halide light fixture. It came equipped with a 4K bulb.
Does anyone know how well this will work with a fuge? I was always under the impression that the lower kelvin rated bulbs will not work well for growing macroalgae, but someone on here once told me how wrong I was and I never got to get an elaborated answer.

 

[tx reef]

6500k is the lowest I would go as far as bulbs go. In a fuge with such a low kelvin bulb you are likely to grow a lot of nuisance algae that could over take the algae you want to grow.
I think a MH is overkill big time in a fuge, anyway.

 

[zanoshanox]

agreed^ I would just do a 10k or 6700k PC fixture. you'll get al the growth you want.

 

[scsinet]

Originally Posted by TX Reef
I think a MH is overkill big time in a fuge, anyway.
Can't say I disagree with you... ...just that I had it lying around.

 

[reefkprz]

the best thing I have ever found for growing plants/alga's is the regular output flor. flora sun by coralife. I think MH would be overkill as well. I also think 4k would be far too low to promote good plant growth. 65k or 72k are my personal favorites for best plant growth, those are the spectrum's I use over my FW planted tank for my high light requiring FW plants. I use lower K bulbs on tanks that I want to prohibit growth in. I actually use 50/50 over my Goldfish tank to slow algae growth and after switching to it there was a marked reduction in how often I have to clean the algae off the glass. that's just my thoughts on it, I don't really have hard data to back that up just personal experience.

 

[fishcake]

I use 2 18w 6700k
and macro growth is phenominal.
MH is definately overkill!
You could try it out (experiment) see how it go's.
Won't cost you anything to try,
We as hobbyist's would not be where we are today if people did not experiment!