best lighting for my tank ?

[Lido]

Hey everyone,

I currency have a 85 gallon partially planted partially artificial tank with 10 discus. Blue Turk, red Turk, melon, cobalt, green spotted red and leopard discus along with some swords and AS grass type plants. I have a wave point 48 inch t5 and was wondering what your thoughts on bulb selection was. I currently have actinic and sunlight 2x2 but was thinking of changing to pink and blue or pink and yellow or maybe even a mix of the three. What are your thoughts?

[DiscusLoverJeff]

If you are going with a planted tank, you will need to decide if you want a low tech or high tech tank.

Use the search feature and type in lighting. There are some great threads to read that might offer you a solution.

[dirtyplants]

The Actinic will make your colors pop out, but have little affect on freshwater plants. Plants like reds and blues, daylight is around 5500k. Japanese like more greens but greens and yellow are the favorite for algae growth. I tend toward super daylight around 6700k. The intensity of the light spectrum needed depends on the depth of the tank, that can be accomplished by HO, quantity of bulbs, distance from the top of aquarium and length of time the lights are on. The type of plants you have will also determine how much light and spectrum. Low light plants require much less. I would look more into light spectrum and the spectrum needed for your plants you can mix bulbs also just remember the six month rule to bulbs and remember that as the bulb ages it also looses spectrum.

[tonytheboss1]

:bandana: Agree w/ above. When I had plants, 6700k was my choice. About 7hrs a day on a timer was sufficient for my set up. Yours will be different depending on plant variety, substrate & tank depth. I opted out but was somewhat successful for a minute.
http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb95/tonytheboss1/003-2.jpg (http://s210.photobucket.com/user/tonytheboss1/media/003-2.jpg.html)