Aquarium Lighting

Lights are one of the main elements in the set up of fish tank. Aquarium lighting works to replicate the night time and daylight for aquatic animals. Having the component in an fish tank is useful and beneficial especially for plants as they need the light to thrive.

Also proper light spectrum will accent the colors of the fish so they appear full of live. Fish rely on light not only to create the day/night conditions but they recognize the colors in order to survive and breed. They would often change the colors during the courtship period which aid the natural partner selection process.

The kind of lighting you would use differs in many ways based on the a type of fish and plants in an aquarium . Many of the plants will not survive without light, without photosynthesis process plants can’t grow.

Fluorescent aquarium lighting

The fluorescent is the most common type of light for the fish tank. Light tubes of those lamps have been created to suit various purposes and have been designed to replicate specific conditions using various light spectrum. There are tubes for day and night, exposing fish colors or making the plants grow better.

Fluorescent tubes come with power unit requiring a starter and watertight caps for every end of the bulb. For safety reasons it is safer to choose a starter unit that can be placed outside of the tank but certain designs place it in the canopy above the water.

Daylight white tubes imitate the natural light conditions occurring in the water in nature at midday. Blue bulbs imitate the moonlight and are useful for fish active at night.

There are special actynic blue light tubes designed to support corals and those replicate light conditions of the deep sea. Also used in marine fish tanks are the pink spectrum lamps that enhance the colors of reef inhabitants and help the coral and plants in growing.

A simple trick to increase the light in the tank is to install highly reflective reflector either white or silver to reflect more light to the tank.

It is important to find out how much light you need for your setup as there are different guidance for every type of biotope. To figure out the power of light you need take into account the depth of the tank, quantity of plants and when your animals are active most.

Heavy planted tropical tanks will have to use the light for 8-10 hours every day, marine coral will need 10-12 hours. It is important to use the timer as the fish and plants rely on the light cycle. Keep in mind that excess of light in a tank without many plants will cause algae to bloom.

Factors to consider in choosing a type of aquarium lighting. They include the color temperature and wattage of light. Higher wattage of light bulbs can provide brighter illumination. Thus, if you have bigger and deeper aquarium size, you may need a higher wattage.

Aquarium color temperature

The color temperature, measured in Kelvin, can refer to the light spectrum emitted by a bulb. There are 20,000 Kelvin light bulbs that can imitate the lighting condition underneath the sea’s surface. The color temperature of sunlight is nearly 6500 K. The 10000 K light can give good color effect to corals and fishes in tropical aquarium.

To have a healthy aquarium environment, installing aluminum lighting is a necessity, also it is important to know the lifespan of the aquarium lights as with time they can get weaker. For a fluorescent tube the useful range goes to about 1 year.

LED aquarium lighting

LED aquarium lamps are becoming ore popular as their prices come down quickly. LED’s can last much longer than any other artificial light source.

Probably the biggest benefit is the energy savings as aquarium LED’s need very little power to work. They also don’t generate the heat and come in various shapes and sizes so there is no limits to encorporate the light into aquarium setup.   The only limiting factor can be the price