I came across a large tank in a store that had a blue color type light to it and it shimmered. I should have asked someone in the store but I was in a hurry. It was kind of like what you would see in a indoor pool with the pool lights on with the shimmering light on the walls but this reflection was in the tank.
Can anyone share how to accomplish this and what light they may have been using in order to do this?
Lots of reef tanks use Metal Halide lighting, which looks like what you described. Metal Halides can come in 14000K and 20000K color temperatures, which are bluish in coloration, plus most saltwater tanks use actinic lighting in addition to the "day" lights, which give a blue/purple color to the tank (and help make the bright colors of the fish and corals "glow" like flourescent).
As for the shimmering, Metal Halides contribute to that because they are "point" light source. Instead of being generated over a strip that runs the length of the tank, they are an extremely bright spot. The fact that the light originates from a single point causes the shimmering effect by casting shadows through the ripples on the surface. Assuming as the previous poster said, the surface of the water is rippling (which is also usually the case in saltwater tanks, as a result of the need for high flow within the tank and surface turbulence to increase oxygen levels in the tank).
interesting, that's cool that they'd put expensive lighting like that over a freshwater tank. Maybe they had live plants in it?
Unless they did something different to create that shimmering effect, I can tell you that if you invest in a metal halide light fixture, and a powerhead to put in the tank pointed at the surface (to create the surface turbulance), you'll get that shimmering effect :-D.
By the way, if you do happen to go back by there and find out what they do, if you wouldn't mind come back and update this thread and let us know. If they did something other than the MH lighting, and have some cool mechanism, I'd be curious to hear. It's definitely a cool effect for the tank, myself and others might be interested to know what they did!
Actually metal halides are considered extremely inefficent and out dated in the hydroponic world most people are using HPS high pressure sodium which is a better choice all around.
This would be the first time I've ever heard someone suggest that type of light for an aquarium. MHs aren't super efficient but if you need a lot of light they're still better than most readily available sources for getting it.
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