Another Algae Attack

[sherchoo]

Allen,

The higher colour temp are of the bluish spectrum which algae loves. As seen with those specific plant tubes are rather redish that is good for plants and not too for algae.
As a practise in planted tanks we often choose daylight (6500K) which is not too much blue spectrum and white enough to display the true colours of the plants. The lower temp are rather dull looking and tend to be yellowish.

[AirStern]

I second to Sherchoo to the wrong usage of 10000K lighting ... in nature, it is only to the max of 6500K, i myself have use this lighting, it is very very true that it is a magnet for algae, last time used to think the more the merrier

[eprouve]

Hmmm... so I should have it changed to 6500K then? Will get to it tomorrow when I go to NA.

[Allen_1971]

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On 11/19/2002 6:07:52 PM

Allen,

The higher colour temp are of the bluish spectrum which algae loves. As seen with those specific plant tubes are rather redish that is good for plants and not too for algae.
As a practise in planted tanks we often choose daylight (6500K) which is not too much blue spectrum and white enough to display the true colours of the plants. The lower temp are rather dull looking and tend to be yellowish.
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I'm not disagreeing that 10K color temp is wrong... usually thats only used for marine tanks.... however, the 10K color can be derived by various combinations of the spectrum. While I'm no expert in light and its associated spectrum, its always been my assumption (and I could be wrong)that you could get a 10K tube which works well for plants, just as you could get a 6500K tube which was good for algae... it all depends on the spectrum.
As such, I've always taken the color temp as more of a "rule of thumb" rather than a hard fact.