Best lighting for FO tank

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Alan

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Guys/gals was just wondering what spectrum of lighting would be best to show off the colours of fish? Busy setting up a fish only system at work and was wondering about the lighting. Going to be a tank of my favourite fish, so far got a Gem, regal angel, Atlantic blue tang, twin spot gobies and 2 black caps. Still need emperor angel, majestic angel and tiger angel.
 
i rekon anything as long as you add a pure atinic
 
I would guess around 10 000K with Pure actinic.
 
in my 4ft FOWLR tank that i had. had a pair of 3ft t5s,1 white 1 20k blue and 1 3ft t8 blue.it really use to bring out the colours in the fish.
 
10K MH, pure actinic and some moonlights. Obviously MH not needed but hell i love those shimmer lines..
 
I'm with Hill on this one.

But make the 10,000K ones MH.
 
I think it depends on the colours of your fish. The bluer spectrums (15-20K, actinic) really bring out the colours like blues, violets and purples in fish, but don't do much at all for the reds, oranges and browns (rather obvious I think).

So IMO you would need to balance the lights according to the colours of the fish more than anything. If the predominant fish colours are the purples/blues bias your lighting toward this side. If more reds/yellows/oranges use a lighting spectrum closer to the red side (but I still would not go less than 10000K)

Regards,
Clinton
 
Alan there is a red spectrum globe recently come on the market

IMO a mixture of 10K / Actinic / Red spectrum T5's should cover all the bases.
MH shimmer lines are cool but would be impratical on this type of tank with the heat issues of Durban in summer.
 
pls tell us more abt the red spectrum globe pls ... sorry to hijack tread alan
 
I saw a red T5 in action last night at Len's place. He has an awesome Discus setup and I was immensely impressed with the colours of the fish!! Really really nice!
 
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