Light wattage for refugium
- Thread starter SJ-78
- Start date
As much as you can get. Macroalgae are naturally in shallow water in tropical climates so they want and love lots of light.
cant help wit an exact light sorry.
but make sure its at least 10k in color temp.....
some people say that cheato will do good in any lighting, but truthfully it should be 10,000 kelvin rating.
but make sure its at least 10k in color temp.....
some people say that cheato will do good in any lighting, but truthfully it should be 10,000 kelvin rating.
I have a 2 60 watt sprial cfl bulbs over my 10 gallon fuge, 10k spectrum. The bulbs should be about 5 bucks each, and the housing can be as cheap as 7 bucks if you dont care about appearances. I just used two cheap workshop clamp lights.
Why couldnt they be lower than 10k? Photosynthesis improves with lower numbers. Most people that grow plants use 6700k or something in that area. Stands to reason algae would be the same.
Yes, photosyntheiss uses red light, 10,000K or more is much bluer than what they are used to, which is natural sunlight at about 6500K. This is why planted tanks usually have such reddish white lighting.
Yes. 5000-7000 is ideal. I have 6500 right now. I only added them a few day ago. Already seeing some growth. Before I had 7100k but only 18w for 10g fuge. I don't think it was enough. Switched to 2-13w 6500k lights but they are rated at 60w each. The spiral type.