Wed May 28, 2008 1:43 pm GMT   Reply      

My aquarium looks too bright, am i using the wrong bulbs??? I see some aquariums and they look as if they've been 'dimmed'. Also my aquarium has a kind of yellowish glow whereas i see some with a more bluey glow, what lighting products can i use to get this effect!? Thanks

Wed May 28, 2008 2:01 pm GMT   Reply      

you can get that blue hue by running an actinic bulb along with your whites........the yellow hue comes from a lower Kelvin rateing....your bulb or the box they came in will tell you that.................i'm a salt guy, so my lights may or may not work in your environment......but im running 2 - 65 watt, 10,000k 420 actinic combo bulbs on a 20 {us gallon} long tank.....and its crisp brite with that blue hue your wanting..........it's a "current" fixture if your interested- -as a rule though most of the fresh water people don't run such intense bulbs on their tanks because they don't need that light for their environments................im sure others will have better information for you ................nice tank BTW.....................Snowboss

Wed May 28, 2008 2:13 pm GMT   Reply      

I think 6700k is optimal kelvin for plants. Bulbs below 5500k will encourage more algae growth and less plant growth. Supplementing actinic lighting will probably just encourage algae growth in a FW setup. Although if you have fish who's color may react to a blue spectrum light you may be interested.
Bright light is nothing to be afraid of, especially if you're planning on going with live plants as your profile says. Some tanks just have dark substrate/lots of dense plantings which dim the light a lot. I'm guessing you have a decent wattage but a bad kelvin rating. Basically the higher the kelvin the whiter the light. Lights over 6700k are usually used in SW setups, up to 18,000k.

Wed May 28, 2008 2:22 pm GMT   Reply      

From the look of your tank, I wouldn't say its too bright... looks great to me. Then again, if u feel its too bright, try some actinics

Wed May 28, 2008 5:43 pm GMT   Reply      

Thanks for the advice, I actually bought the tank second hand about 5 months ago and have just been concentrating on getting the water levels spot on. Now I've got that sorted I moving more onto the asthetic side of things and new bulbs are definitely something I'll be looking at. Btw on the pic I had to turn the camera's brightness down considerably. lol. Thanks.