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Re: Plant & Aquarium Bulbs
- To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Re: Plant & Aquarium Bulbs
- From: K9AUB at aol_com
- Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 07:49:15 EDT
Are all the so called "Plant &Aquarium" Bulbs you can get from Home depot,
Walmart, etc in the 3400K range? If so, why and is that really the best for
plants and fish?
I can't speak for every single brand in the world, but GE plant & aquarium
tubes are in the 4800k range, but of course fluorescents don't supply a
continuous spectrum (which doesn't really seem to affect plants all that much).
Photographers, always searching for cheap sources of copious quantities of light,
have built "white boxes" with banks of fluorescent lights, and have
successfully used plant tubes for color photography, where color balance is critical for
proper color rendition. For color negative film, the results are slightly
"warm," and can be corrected with a touch of blue filtration to give very
acceptable results. Certainly they are more desirable than Cool White, which has
gaps in its spectrum and which renders photographic subjects with a greenish tint
that is difficult to filter out. Other GE tubes, such as the GE Chroma 50
("Sunshine" tube) give a very acceptable 5000k light output. As for plants, I
know better than to make a definitive statement here, but I think you'll find
that plant tubes will supply a very acceptable quality of light for aquarium
plants, albeit with a slightly pinkish-violet tinge to it. I have had great
success with the Chroma 50 for aquarium plants. To my eye (but not necessarily
to someone else's eye), it's a more neutral white light that plants seem to
love. Of course, these comments do not include comparisons with PC lighting,
which is, IMHO, much more suitable. But if you've got a shop light over your
tank and don't want to spend $$$ upgrading, then the GE Chroma 50 or the GE plant
tubes should suit your purposes. They have mine. YMMV.
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