Bright light wash out fish colors?

[Jag586]

So I have my 220 setup with a shop light it has two 48" bulbs in it in used to set it right ontop of the tank until someone said my fish looks washed out and I started thinking all the fish I had kept never really had deep dark colors only lighter ones so I suspended the light from the ceiling in hopes this will help I do have a lighter substrate (pool filter sand) but I have a black background. So could it have been the light? I'll keep it up off the tank for a while and see what happens the tank is not as bright so maybe at very least it'll help with algae


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[stempy]

There's a lot of variables involved in 'washed out' colors. Fishes health, diet, stress, light/dark substrate, lighting spectrum/intensity, etc. I use high power leds (full spectrum reef lighting) and my fish look fantastic. In my african tank the lighting really makes the colors 'pop'. The blues are flourescent and oranges in particular really stand out. In my planted tank the black mollies and black angels are very dark with beautiful blue and gold highlights. Before the leds I used 6500k 26w cfls and although the fish looked good they certainly didn't look anywhere near as nice as they do under the leds but i wouldnt say they looked washed out. So yes lighting can effect the way your fish look but I wouldn't think it would wash out their colors so much, I would look at other factors first if they are looking really drab.

 

[Allan01230]

I switched to black gravel from light natural. My roseline sharks really popped even giant danios which were just silver in the natural gravel turn blue gold and yellow in black gravel So I think dark gravel/sand will help tremendously.

 

[raubiy]

Food play big role on fish color
+ bright LED light give best shine effect on fish. I'm also dosing Easy Life Cattapa X for colors.
I can say it help litle.