# does actinic lights do anything inparticular for freshwater planted tanks?



## Destinee (Dec 11, 2007)

I was wondering because I have 2 10000k and 2 blue actnic lights on my 55 gal, in the process of changing my light setup. was wondering if I should keep them or get rid of them, but I dont know what they do. besides look cool at night.


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## kzr750r1 (Jun 8, 2004)

50/50 will make your fish colors pop but do nothing for the plants.

Takt those out and replace with somthing in the 6700K range with the 10000K would be a nice combo.


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## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

Destinee said:


> I was wondering because I have 2 10000k and 2 blue actnic lights on my 55 gal, in the process of changing my light setup. was wondering if I should keep them or get rid of them, but I dont know what they do. besides look cool at night.



Im not so sure Destinee said 50/50. She said 2 10,000K and 2 actnic.

Actnic lighting is good for reef setups, but the general consensus is that it doesn't do anything for planted tanks other than esthetics for fish viewing like krz750 said. You might not want to replace the actnics though depending on what you are doing with the tank. What are the wattages of the bulbs and are you going the high light or low light route?


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## kzr750r1 (Jun 8, 2004)

Sorry I thought the two were one in the same...my bad.


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## Destinee (Dec 11, 2007)

its a total of 260 watts total, is that considered bright light on a 55 gal? 

I think I am going to go with replacing the actnic lights with two 6700k since I dont have any of that on there.....I dont really care about the how cool the actnic lights look, im trying to get my plants up to where they should be....


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## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

Destinee said:


> its a total of 260 watts total, is that considered bright light on a 55 gal?
> 
> I think I am going to go with replacing the actnic lights with two 6700k since I dont have any of that on there.....I dont really care about the how cool the actnic lights look, im trying to get my plants up to where they should be....


Are you going the high light or low light route? 260 for a 55 is doable, but its going to be a high light, CO2 injected, daily ferts type of tank.


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Agreed, if you're not planning on getting heavy with CO2 and ferts, leave only two of your bulbs in an ideal range (6700 - 10000). If all are switched to a better kelvin rating then plant uptake will be so great that you may have issues without CO2/ferts, especially with all four bulbs running. Anything is possible though if you adjust your husbandry right, which would probably require next to no water changes, full stocking and some heavy floating plants.

Do you know what type of plants you want to grow, or what the requirements are of the plants you're into? If I were going to make this a low tech tank, I'd remove one actinic, and replace one 10000k with a 6700k, three bulbs total (65w each correct?). If high tech, I'd still only have three bulbs but all ideal range. Four 65w bulbs is too much IMO.


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