about lighting?

movadoman21

movadoman21

Member
just reading some message boards on some other fish sites and i am confused about what lights to get for my tank. i have a 55gal tank with just one two bulb light thats for regular fish it houses two florenent bulbs. was reading about coralline algae need blue (actinic) lighting for calcium to grown (is taht coralline algae on the L/R) whats the difference between actinic light,PC,MH,VHO'S. just doing a lot of reading and gettting confused on if i need all three of them or just a pair or what. i plain on getting some corals later donw the line. just wanna get all the equipment out of the way. would like the tank to have a nice blue or a nice contrast to it. any help would greatfull
thank you
chris:confused:
 
slick

slick

Active Member
I will give you a brief overview of some of the types of lighting available for you to use. Now PC stands for power compact lights. They are a twin tube, or u tube type bulb. Thet are florecent bulb that is made smaller to fit into tight spaces.
VHO stands for very high output. They are just like normal florecent bulbs but are a high output version.
MH stands for metal halides. They are the best and brightest bulbs available to use now, but they get very hot.
Now actinic is just the a color spectrum. You can get it in PC's, and VHO's. It is a nice purpleish color and makes corals and fish sort of glow. It's like this a bulb is given a K value. This is it's kelvin color. A 20,000k bulb will be blue light. 10,000k is a crisp white. And a 6,500k is a yellowish white. So the higher the K number the more blue it will contain. There is so much info on lighting I would be here all night trying to explain it all. I suggest you do a few searches to help you understand more about this topic.
 
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