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Fluros?????

2K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  Robnjo 
#1 ·
just a quick question, with my 4 foot tubes, which out of the Daylight one and the Actinic help/feed the bad Algaes?
or are both the same when it comes to Algaes?
Just trying to get a grasp on Algae. :wink:
Rob.
 
#3 ·
sorry, I should have worded it better, my bad.
Which of those 2 lights help(Not that I want too) Green Hair Algae and other bad stuff to grow in a tank, that does not have great water Quality to start with?
Rob. :wink:
 
#4 ·
Now that my algae and water quality are all sorted, I've set my daylights(2 tubes) on for 5 hours and Actinic(2 tubes) 14 hours(for the Live Rock). at the moment my Hood can hold 5 tubes but I only got 4 in there, would it be good to make the 5th one Actinic?
 
#5 ·
All lights feed the algea. What happens is that when lights start to get old they burn towards the red part of the light spectrum. The actinics are the lights that burn toward the lowest part of the spectum. The spectrum of visiable light is 400nm to 780nm. Actinics burn aroun 420-470nm depending on the bulb specs. Day lamps burn higher in the spectrum. As the life of bulbs gets older it starts to burn closer towards the higher end of the spectrum. When this happens algea starts to feed. Thats why its good to replace the bulbs before the recommend change time. Below is a chart I googled for better understanding. I googled this pic.

 
#6 ·
Heck yeah, look at Mike taking it up a notch.

Indeed your actinics won't support algae. It's more prevelant when a 10K wears out. The light output of 6,500-8,000 is super prime for algaes. What a lot of people don't take into consideration is that if you have been burning 14K for a long time and the color begins to rapidly shift, your coral groewth will slow. This will lead to excess unused nutrients and excess light while they adjust. This allows the algae to prosper during this adjustment time.
 
#7 ·
ok, so now all my 5 tubes are new and I've written the install date near each one.
I got my 3 Actinics set from 630am till 9.30pm (15hrs), on for this long at this stage to push my Coraline Algae a long faster.
And my 2 daylight set from 10am till3pm (5hrs).
Q :?: .So should I be right thinking I'll change my Actinics every 6months and daylights every year with these sort of run times ? There is no Tube Life on the packs.
While I get my tubes cheap, I'll stick to them instead of metal halides, at this stage and my tank is only 1 and a half foot deep.
 
#8 ·
There is about a year life if that on those. So I would change them out about 6-8months. All of them regardless of the times on.
 
#9 ·
no worries, I'll do 6mths on actinics and 8mths on Daylights....now I'll sort out a skimmer(external) :D
Thank you
 
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