# should I use the blue light



## broham (Oct 6, 2015)

I have a 37 g freshawater planted tank with a beamswork 110 .5 watt led. Its 10000 kalvin and 16 460nm blue actnic Leds. Should I have both on at same time for optimal growth?


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## essabee (Oct 7, 2006)

Blue atnic lights are totally useless for plants; I don't think it was of any use in marine aquariums either except to cause some organism to show their florescence. 

If you ever have any freshwater monsters I hear being created by splicing florescence producing genes; you may use these lights to make them glow.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

essabee said:


> Blue atnic lights are totally useless for plants; I don't think it was of any use in marine aquariums either except to cause some organism to show their florescence.
> 
> If you ever have any freshwater monsters I hear being created by splicing florescence producing genes; you may use these lights to make them glow.


err... plants can use any photons in the visible range...


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## essabee (Oct 7, 2006)

jeffkrol said:


> err... plants can use any photons in the visible range...


Yes they do. Blue atnic 460 nm would mean ultraviolet with lower end 460nm. Hardly any range in the visible spectrum.


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## micheljq (Oct 24, 2012)

broham said:


> I have a 37 g freshawater planted tank with a beamswork 110 .5 watt led. Its 10000 kalvin and 16 460nm blue actnic Leds. Should I have both on at same time for optimal growth?


Hi, if it what i think the lamp fixture is compose of almost only 10000K leds with only some actinic leds right?

If it is the case it is usable. I had a tank with a Beamswork led fixture 2nd gen, with 121 (10000k) - 0,2w leds and 8 actinics leds for 8 months on a successfull planted tank.

Can you provide more details, the count of 10000k and actinic leds.

Michel.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

essabee said:


> Yes they do. Blue atnic 460 nm would mean ultraviolet with lower end 460nm. Hardly any range in the visible spectrum.












UV doesn't start till below 400nm (and plants can use some)
any light you can see is, by def. visible light.. 

At below 400nm it does drop off a bit but you start to get UV damage .










it is actually not arguable that plants can use "actinic" light..sorry
As a side note it is certainly not the only light one should use (any fairly monochromatic light source by itself really)


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

If you check this link, it will assure you that blue is a spectrum that plants use.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/10-lighting/835834-spectrum-question.html
Just scroll down to the post by jeffkrol and in it he gives a chart of those spectrums which plants use. Look at the chart on the right as it gives a simple graph of which spectrum
is used and to what extent.
Since actinic is essential to coral growth, a misconception exist in freshwater plant people that it is exclusively for salt water. This link proves otherwise.
Though no greatly, your plants will benefit from using the blue at the same time.
I have read one thread on here where the OP stated that red is used by plants for growth while blue is use for pigment production and flowering. How/if that is accurate I know not.


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## Solcielo lawrencia (Dec 30, 2013)

broham said:


> I have a 37 g freshawater planted tank with a beamswork 110 .5 watt led. Its 10000 kalvin and 16 460nm blue actnic Leds. Should I have both on at same time for optimal growth?


You happen to have chosen the worst of the two available LED fixtures. 10K LEDs have very little red and green, both of which are much more useful than intense blue spectra.

But yes, the 460nm will help photosynthesis.

Bump:


Raymond S. said:


> I have read one thread on here where the OP stated that red is used by plants for growth while blue is use for pigment production and flowering. How/if that is accurate I know not.


The entire range of light, from <380nm to >740nm, is used for photosynthesis.

It's red spectra that induces anthocyanin production. Without red light, anthocyanin production will be absent. The more red light, the higher the anthocyanin content, the redder the plants.

Bump:


jeffkrol said:


> At below 400nm it does drop off a bit but you start to get UV damage .
> 
> 
> 
> ...


One thing to note is that the McCree curve, the top graph, is how plants use sunlight for photosynthesis. Chlorophylls A+B, though it appears to absorb more strongly in the blue than red, is only part of the absorptive action. Other pigments allow the spectrum in the orange-red range to be used much more than blue light alone. So companies that use the chlorophyll absorption spectrum to choose their LEDs to fit it are woefully ignorant about how plants use light.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Very good point that I take as "in addition to" what I said as I didn't say red exclusively.
I simply stated what red does as a "stand alone" remark. But your statement added to it by means of complete clarification so thanks for this.
It should be noted that the other spectrums deliver so little use that in indoor light supplimented plant nurseries there are several who only use red LED lighting.
Likely reason being that first the LED uses far less energy so lower cost to run, but also less heat to compensate for. But the LED has by far the most narrow spectrum band.
So far less of other than red is present as compared to fluorescent types.


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## broham (Oct 6, 2015)

micheljq said:


> Hi, if it what i think the lamp fixture is compose of almost only 10000K leds with only some actinic leds right?
> 
> If it is the case it is usable. I had a tank with a Beamswork led fixture 2nd gen, with 121 (10000k) - 0,2w leds and 8 actinics leds for 8 months on a successfull planted tank.
> 
> ...


I believe its 110 10k leds and 16 blue. So u ran them simultanously together and it worked?


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

I had a similar or the same Beamswork fixture and it worked great on a low tech nano. Color was not my favorite, however, so I eventually added two RGB strips which made it much more pleasing to my eye. That said, I didn't see any real improvement after adding the RGB strips. 

Not the greatest picture but here is the tank I am talking about, no problem growing plants. The camera adjusted it to look much nicer but my point is the spectrum was no issue for me.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

QUOTE[=talontsiawd;8407890] Color was not my favorite, however, [/QUOTE]
General consensus w/ the reef centric high blue fixtures


talontsiawd said:


> so I eventually added two RGB strips which made it much more pleasing to my eye. That said, I didn't see any real improvement after adding the RGB strips.


The 5050's (most likely diode type) are pretty low output but they do add some "color"..


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## micheljq (Oct 24, 2012)

broham said:


> I believe its 110 10k leds and 16 blue. So u ran them simultanously together and it worked?


Yes, i have no choice anyway, the 8 actinics can be run alone, but not the others.

Mine is 121 - 10k and 8 actinics. 

Michel.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

micheljq said:


> Yes, i have no choice anyway, the 8 actinics can be run alone, but not the others.
> 
> Mine is 121 - 10k and 8 actinics.
> 
> Michel.


Those diodes are fairly easy to replace..You could w/ some soldering skills, take those off and replace w/ the bridgelux "egg type" diodes in a lower shade of white .i.e 4000 or lower k..
Beamswork LED mod - Reef Central Online Community
MOD - Rework on a Beamswork LED from 10K to 6.5K


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

jeffkrol said:


> QUOTE[=talontsiawd;8407890] Color was not my favorite, however,


General consensus w/ the reef centric high blue fixtures


The 5050's (most likely diode type) are pretty low output but they do add some "color"..[/QUOTE]
Yeah, the RGB strips didn't increase output by any substantial level but did enough to change the color to something desirable. I am like you and like purple (I think you like purple) so the blue from the Beamswork actually was helpful in getting the color I like, ironically. However, plants grew exactly the same with and without the red.



micheljq said:


> Yes, i have no choice anyway, the 8 actinics can be run alone, but not the others.
> 
> Mine is 121 - 10k and 8 actinics.
> 
> Michel.





jeffkrol said:


> QUOTE[=talontsiawd;8407890] Color was not my favorite, however,


General consensus w/ the reef centric high blue fixtures


The 5050's (most likely diode type) are pretty low output but they do add some "color"..[/QUOTE]



micheljq said:


> Yes, i have no choice anyway, the 8 actinics can be run alone, but not the others.
> 
> Mine is 121 - 10k and 8 actinics.
> 
> Michel.


You can cover up the blue with electrical tape. I did this initially but the 10k's are so blue it really didn't change it and I sometimes used the moonlight setting when my friends kids were over so I took the tape off. Unless you replaced them with red, it's not worth the effort as the 10k's are very blue as well. 


On the plus side, fish look pretty great with this light, depending on their color.


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## jeffkrol (Jun 5, 2013)

10000K LED's are already high in blue..









"warm white" LED


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## ahem (Dec 27, 2014)

broham said:


> I have a 37 g freshawater planted tank with a beamswork 110 .5 watt led. Its 10000 kalvin and 16 460nm blue actnic Leds. Should I have both on at same time for optimal growth?


I use them for moonlight, particular for the effect they have little to no photosynthesis input but can still produce visible light for accent. I do wonder and worry if they can be used by certain alga however, particularly the red alga such as BBA. But I am no algae botanist.


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