# best lights for reddish color from green plants



## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

hello every one 
im looking for the best mix of light to bring out the red from my didplis,L.aromatica,rotala colorata and inclinata,ludwigia cuba and australis.

im currently using 4 osram 865 and 2 silvanya grolux
i've seen here amazing tanks with great colors and was wondering what can i do to get these colors
i have 300 liter tank and 6 T5 54w.

so what do you think is the best setup for me?
im limited to osram and silvanya lights only, i know its not the best but we dont have a lot of choice 
here in israel.


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi Yoni_S,

No doubt there will be several responses to you post. There has been some debate here if light intensity, bulb spectrum, or nitrate levels help enhance the red color in plant species. Strangely no one has discussed it possibly it could be a combination of factors.


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

ok
thank you for the answer.
im currently lowering my nitrate from 40PPM
i bought Sera Nitra-Zorb and ill put it tomorrow
it might take a few days and ill report the result in a post
i opened in fretilizers forum, i saw alot of oriental aquariums that use that stuff on bubbles aquarium.
but still there must be some light setup that is best for the coloration of the plants.
ill gladly put here before/after pictures


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

With 40 ppm of NO3 your plants will not be very red. I am surprised you have such high NO3 with all that light though. Maybe you have a huge bioload or a lot of decaying matter vs. not too much plant mass or scarce water changes. Or the test kit is not accurate enough?

Take a little read at this post:
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/aquascaping/70813-help-getting-reds-out-plants-2.html

In your case, i think you have good enough light intensity, *so maybe change 2x of your 865 bulbs for 4,000-5,000 K.* Also, the best is to have a rich substrate so your plants will have a good source of nutrients. You wouldnt want to risk nutrient deficiencies looking for lower water column concentrations....


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

like i said im doing a 50% water change and cleaning the surface.
im using amazonia 2 and ill put the nitra-zorb.
but yesterday i was looking at phillips lights and found 
what i think will be best for me, i have 6 lights and this is the setup ill try:
1 827
2 830
1 840
2 865
and of curse ill reduce the nitrate to 10PPM

what do you think?


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## jdigiorgio (Jan 29, 2004)

Yoni, when find the answer if u do, let us know. I have the most LIME green aromatic and have switch the bulbs, lowered the nitrates, cut down the amount of light and still no change in the plants coloration.

I know this is not what u wanted to hear but maybe some of our tanks are just determined to NOT have red plants grow well in them. One would think it would be an easy task since it is a closed and controled environment that we can manipulate.


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## freshyleif (Jan 9, 2008)

In my experience I have had the most red when I raise my phosphate levels to almost double EI guide.


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## blue thumb (Mar 30, 2010)

I run a couple 3k bloom bulbs mixed with my 65K's enhance the red and seems to brings out the red and orange coloration in my plants. These T5HO 3K bloom bulbs I got only come in 2ft & 4ft. I really like this bulb and looking for an equivalent bulb in a 3ft length. Any one know any 34" 3000K T5HO bulbs? If you really want a red bulb UV makes a bulb they call Red Sun, I bought this bulb hoping is was similar to the 3K bloom bulb, It is not! This bulb is fricken RED! literally. It will make your tank look red! LOL


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

try phillips 827 i think its 2700K
here an update
i lowered my nitrate to 10PPM
and so far no change
i will soon change my lights report back
in the meantime here and video of my new young discus and in the end you can see in the 
right corner my aromatica


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

Yoni_S said:


> like i said im doing a 50% water change and cleaning the surface.
> im using amazonia 2 and ill put the nitra-zorb.
> but yesterday i was looking at phillips lights and found
> what i think will be best for me, i have 6 lights and this is the setup ill try:
> ...


I gave you a suggestion in a sense of not changing too many bulbs at once, therefore reducing the variables and buying costs... 
Now you changed too much at once, so we'll never know which was the solution hehe

Anyways... if you manage to lower NO3 and with your new lighting set-up; maybe you will get better reds. It'll probably take about 1 week to show in the new growth.

But I wonder how you "lowered NO3" though. it typically takes some time to tune your NO3 down... and dont forget you have to keep it there 

Good luck and let us know how it goes!


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

i did a 50% water change
and put Nitra-Zorb in the filter
and im checking every day now and the NO3 stays at 10PPM

i agree that i should not change too much at once
so for now its only the nitrate and next month ill buy 3 bulbs
and try them


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

f1ea said:


> But I wonder how you "lowered NO3" though. it typically takes some time to tune your NO3 down... and dont forget you have to keep it there





> i did a 50% water change
> and put Nitra-Zorb in the filter
> and im checking every day now and the NO3 stays at 10PPM


Ah yes, I forgot you mentioned you were going to use Nitra-zorb. You also have Amazonia soil so nutrients should be available for plants outside the water column... Sounds good


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

freshyleif said:


> In my experience I have had the most red when I raise my phosphate levels to almost double EI guide.


when you raiesd you PO4 levels wasnt it deadly for the fish?

can you explain to me the reason why would you do that?

also youre using the EI method wich says dose alot and do 50% water change every week
but thats not my system i dose carfully everyday in the excat mesaure.

i went out and bought today 3 bulbs 
1 2700K
2 4200K

think ill remove 3 osram 865 and leave only the front one.

the 2700K ill put in the back and the rest after the 2 grolux so the order will be (from back to front)

1 2700K
2 grolux
2 4200K
1 6500K

what do you think?

p.s
the new bulbs are from hyundai


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

Yoni_S said:


> *when you raiesd you PO4 levels wasnt it deadly for the fish?
> 
> can you explain to me the reason why would you do that?*
> 
> ...


Double EI PO4 levels should still be safe for fish...

I think the reasoning behind dosing more PO4 is that a probable factor in red colors is more a NO3O4 ratio and not simply an absolute value of NO3. Meaning, setting out to reduce NO3 is actually trying to increase the relative PO4 to NO3 concentration, which you can also do by simply increasing PO4 (provided NO3 is not so high it hinders plant growth).

By the way, How do you dose carefully the exact measure?
I dont think it is possible, even if your measures are super accurate when you dose, you still dont know what is the exact consumption of your tank. And whatever test kit you're using is not going to give you the 'exact' concentration, it can be reasonably close... but unless you're using lab equipment it will never be the exact concentration.

Thats what EI tries to achieve: you dont know your tank consumption nor you have super accurate test kits, so as a consequence you dont know exactly what is left over at the end of your dosing week. So you just do a large water change and assume its all back to zero again before you start dosing for the following week. All throughout the process you know you're never limiting any nutrient.


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

well its time for an update

10 days past and i still didnt get the color i wanted.
altough alot of plants do get the red/yellow/orange 
color but thats not what i want still

my nitrate is still at 10 PPM 

any toughts?


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## Newt (Apr 1, 2004)

Try some Philips Aquarelles. Its a european T8 bulb but they can be found in the States but you'll have to pay some good $$$$. You are looking for bulbs with strong emissions in the blue area of the spectrum. The Aquarelle is about the most efficient bulb out there. The energy output in the blue and reds for this bulb blow away most T5s and many MH bulbs.

The blue energy output in microeinsteins is about double that of your GroLux bulbs.


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

i checked and we dont have those here and even if we 
do i look for T5 will be a problem for me


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

Yoni_S said:


> well its time for an update
> 
> 10 days past and i still didnt get the color i wanted.
> altough alot of plants do get the red/yellow/orange
> ...


So you're getting some color? not bad. Perhaps just keep what you're doing and see how the color goes as the plants grow and reach for the surface. Maybe also after your next trim, new growth will have more color. But if your NO3 are staying at 10ppm, your tank conditions are healthy.


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## Yoni_S (May 17, 2010)

why souldnt they be healthy?
all the plants are well except for hyfropihllia sunset.
the leafs are all rinkeld but i keep it low anyway because 
its still gorwing in its emerged form


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## f1ea (Jul 7, 2009)

Yoni_S said:


> why souldnt they be healthy?
> all the plants are well except for hyfropihllia sunset.
> the leafs are all rinkeld but i keep it low anyway because
> its still gorwing in its emerged form


Because plants get better color when conditions are healthy = not too much NO3 build up + good nutrient uptake. If your tank was building NO3 (probably from leaf death, or too much decomposing organics, or not enough growth) then it will be harder to get red colors. So, with your NO3 in good form... you have the most important thing well in its way.


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