# more lighting questions



## maxima423 (Mar 31, 2011)

okay, sorry if this has asked a million times, but my questions are:

1) would 10k lighting in a 20g long burn my plants?
would they be efficient as 6700k?
downsides to 10k?

2) i plan to upgrade to these

http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.c...fm?c=3578+3733+13822+22134&pcatid=22134&r=488

and was wondering if i should get the 24" or the 30" FW fixture, the reason i ask this is because my 20g long is 30"s long, but with the stand, would the 30" fixture be too long for the 20g ?

3) are the legs adjustable ?

4) the fixtures comes with

24" fixture

(1) 24" 24W 650nm Pink Roseate
(1) 24" 24W 6,000°K

30" fixture

(1) 30" 24W 650nm Pink Roseate
(1) 30" 24W 6,000°K

would 6,000k be efficient as 6,700k?
what does 650nm pink roseate mean?

5) are these lights good enough to grow low/medium lighting?

6) should i get better bulbs?

thanks


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## cino (May 1, 2011)

To answer your questions to the best of my knowledge:

6.5K seems to be the most commonly rec. spectrum over-all unless you are more advanced and know how to use bulbs to create certain affects, I certainly don't. I did not have any luck with the Aquatic Life bulbs you mentioned but I have high light tanks and was not looking for low, bushy growth such as the reds produce. The roseate bulb was a little bit too red for my taste (and my plants) I personally have had the best luck with Wave Point Tropical Wave bulbs thus far. Your choice of bulbs will have a lot to do with the plants you wish to keep but I believe that that would be your best choice in over-all spectrum. 

I'd stay away from the blue end of the spectrun 10,000K+ as most plants that you mentioned can not utilize the blues as well as the reds. It is only red plants and maybe some other brighter light plants that can utilize the blues.

Another thing I would like to mention is my own questions about the reflectors used in the Aquatic Life bulbs. I have a total of 6 Tropical Wave T-5s on one of our tanks. Four are in one fixture, the other two are in an Aquatic Life fixture I recently added. All 6 bulbs are the same and all were bought and added to my tank at the same time. There is a purplish/red tint to the 2 bulbs in the Aquatic Life fixture that are not in the better and bigger Current fixture. At first I thought this was coming from the splash lens but upon its removal, we noticed the purple/red was still there. We are not happy about this. If we want more purple/red end to our light spectrum, we will add it ourselves.

I'd have to double check your post to answer any further questions. Gotta run for now however.

Good Luck


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## cino (May 1, 2011)

PS, get the fixtures to match the length of your tank. and no, the legs are not adjustable. Not sure how long a 20 gal. long is but I am assuming the tank is shallow so you would want to stick to low, bushy growing plants which means the red end of the spectrum. The only way to know is to try it and find out. See how your plants grow and how your fish look under those lights that come with the fixture.


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## cino (May 1, 2011)

Just working with our tank here with the Aquatic Life fixture


MY MISTAKE The legs are horizontally adjustable and yes, go with the 30" fixture.


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