# coralife good for plants?



## Chostshrimp (May 28, 2007)

i'm realy bad with planted aquairum lighting and i don't want to waste another fortune on lighting. I have this 10 gallon that i want to flood up with crypts, but the hood is a lamp bulb type and i bought 2 coralife nini 50/50 white and actinic making 2w/g. Since crypts need low light i don't know if to go and buy another system or wil the bulbs be ok?


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

Actinic lights have no use in freshwater planted aquariums. They are meant for reef tanks. If you have 50/50 lights, cut the amount of light you think you have by half. Find yourself some bulbs anywhere between 6500 and 10k in kelvin measurement.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Some Crypts would struggle along growing very slowly with the bulbs you now have, effectively about one watt per gallon. But, I agree with mike that you really need non-actinic bulbs to have a healthy planted tank. (Or twice as many of the 50-50 bulbs.)


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## Chostshrimp (May 28, 2007)

Since i have the blue the bulbs, should i get the colormax bulbs?


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## frozenbarb (Feb 8, 2007)

aNYTHING for 6k-10k


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## Chostshrimp (May 28, 2007)

Yes, but the colormax bulbs don't say their (k)s


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## Ulan (Oct 2, 2006)

The colormax bulbs are slightly pinkish and good for plants. They are meant to go with some 6700K bulbs; the combination makes for a nice light in the aquarium.


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## mikenas102 (Feb 8, 2006)

According to this the Colormax looks to be 6700k.


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## Ulan (Oct 2, 2006)

mikenas102 said:


> According to this the Colormax looks to be 6700k.


No, it just means that that specific PC lamp contains both spectra. PC lamps often have two different halves.

Most of these K values do not tell you much, anyway. Freshwater bulbs should have some output across the visible spectrum of light, preferably in the red and blue. Don't get too much impressed by those color ratings. The main band of 6700K bulbs is not even suitable for plant growth (it's green), but that doesn't matter, because the rest of the output is (plus they have a good secondary peak in the red). The Colormax has its main peaks in the blue and green, but a nice output at most visible wavelengths; the color looks pinkish, as I said.


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## Chostshrimp (May 28, 2007)

Ok i think you got me wrong, i had bought this bulbs http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753932 , but since they have the blue part to them, i they realy don't do much. They make the same type of bulb , but in colormax.


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## frozenbarb (Feb 8, 2007)

Wow everyone is not confused, Do you have the link to the colormax one?.. The ones you brought sucks


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## Chostshrimp (May 28, 2007)

This are the Colormax
http://www.aquariumguys.com/minicompact.html


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## fishfan (Feb 19, 2006)

I used to use one of those colormax bulbs and the plants grew very well. Unfortuately I didn't like the pink hue that shown on the gravel bottom and how dim the bulb was so I switched.


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## ruki (Jul 4, 2006)

Ulan said:


> No, it just means that that specific PC lamp contains both spectra. PC lamps often have two different halves.
> 
> Most of these K values do not tell you much, anyway. Freshwater bulbs should have some output across the visible spectrum of light, preferably in the red and blue. Don't get too much impressed by those color ratings. The main band of 6700K bulbs is not even suitable for plant growth (it's green), but that doesn't matter, because the rest of the output is (plus they have a good secondary peak in the red). The Colormax has its main peaks in the blue and green, but a nice output at most visible wavelengths; the color looks pinkish, as I said.


A true K number comes from observing the spectrum of a heated blob of stuff in a vacuum. It works really well for classifying the light from stars in astronomy.

Fluorescent K numbers are something of an average taking advantage of the fact that our eyes see in Red, Green and Blue. But a K number is only appropriate for a fluorescent light that is trying to approximate light from a Star. Plant bulbs and the color max have spectra that don't look at all like something from a star even when cheating with an RGB average. To me, it makes no sense at all to give such tubes a K number.


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## Chostshrimp (May 28, 2007)

Ok , i have them and they look like Mar's lost river, but the green java ferns still show. Ok, so it would be 2wpg and i'm think think of mostly doing low light plants(ferns,crypts,mosses) and maybe some medium light stem plants will this be ok?The light is pure colormax, but its said to be ok with the plnats by everyone.Will my tank be ok in making a swampy , but flooded with plants aquarium?


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## ruki (Jul 4, 2006)

I'll interpret your question as Colormax versus other bulbs.

The colormax has enough reds and blues to grow plants. It will do probably OK, but other bulbs will do a better job.

One approach is to mix a plant bulb with a colormax so the plants do better and the fish still look striking. Putting a bluish bulb (10,000 K) with the colormax might do really well with plants since there is fair amount of red in the color max.

I save my colormax tubes for aquarium shows. It makes orange and red fish look really good. I used 6700K at home for plants, then swap the tubes for fish display tanks.


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