colored ligthing

[tankbusterlover]

Hello,

I was just curious how many of you still light their tank with colored light bulbs. Most of the time it's incandecent ligthing but nowadays on ebay you can get things to put over neons to color them of the color of your choice.

I was also wondering if it could be done on a 75 gallon and bigger with incandescent lighthing. I know colored ligthing is not very popular becasue you can't see the true color of the fish especially when you have very colorful cichilds.

The color blue and green seems to be the most popular choice of color i have seen. I can see why blue because moonligt underwater seem bleuish but for green i don't see. Amber and red are less popular but i don't dislake the amber color at all.

I am also strongly thinking about getting a moonlight kit but in that case color does not really matter.

 

[WyldFya]

Colored LED lights are the best method. They need to be in VERY large numbers to light a tank though.

 

[aropal]

You’d be surprised how LED technology has moved on. Even over the last 12 months.
I’m presently using two MR16 downlight fittings as shown below.
The fitting are both 36 degree (~20degress after passing into water) spotlights. The one on the left being a 35 watt Solux hallogen the one on the right is a 1.4 watt (as measured) led fitting producing approximately 100 lumens.

I’d say the LED looks to be about a third the brightness of the Solux bulb.
The latest LED technology can do ~twice that with 3 LED’s:
http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/u163crd-mr16-acdc-cree-light-lumen-flood-p-1398.html
So, assuming you weren't trying to grow plants you could easily light an aquarium with 3 of these fittings (12 LED's in total).
Sure, they’re a little expensive but the LED’s themselves have an estimated 50,000 hour life according to some of the manufacturers and of course they use a fraction of the power.
There are a couple of other benefits of using LED technology:
Firstly, you can produce LED’s which emit different colours without having to use colour filters.
And more relevant to aquarium use, they run cool.

 

[Topaztas]

LED Lighting is also great to get a decent look at your nocturnal/shy fish at night!!