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Tetra Day Cycle lamps
I just bought a Tetra Day Cycle flourescent bulb for my kid's lizard. There
is a color chart of the light output on the side. Instead of a bunch of
spikes, it flows across the spectrum rather more smoothly. It peaks in the
red, drops through yellow and green and climbs again to a second peak in the
blue. Then it tapers smoothly from there to zero at 250 nanometers, which
puts it into the UV "B" range.
The visible light output of this bulb looks pretty good for plant growth. I
am curious about the UV issues. In the wild, and certainly in the tropics,
there is UV shining down into the water. Any thoughts about whether this is
good, bad, or indifferent for fish and aquatic plants? At first I was
thinking the water would tend to block most of it, but the blue end of the
spectrum travels further through water than the red end. Certainly the UV
would also? And would it do for fish what it supposedly does for reptiles?
Would the UV tend to sterilize the bad microbes? Even the good ones?
Bob Dixon