Do atinic light bulbs have affect on watts/gallon?

[Kingfisher]

Hello again

Do atinic lights have any affect on the watts/gallon when it comes to planted tanks? Im in the process of setting up a low tech planted tank so the light is going to be off for most of the day. I would like to leave the atinics on when the halides are off. Thanks for the input.

[Wahter]

Here's a discussion about actinic lighting for planted tanks:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/equipment/29562-actinic-lights.html



Walter

[pcsb23]

The short answer is "No".

Whilst many will say they are no use in a planted tank they do add a nice effect. I used to have a reef tank and that had actinics on, converted this to a planted tank and it worked and looked great with one actinic left in. I also had far less algae problems in this tank than any other but never had enough time (or money!) to test the theory, there was also too many variables.

[Kingfisher]

So actinic light does not appear to affect plants but what about algae? Does anyone have a 10 gallon tank and a actinic bulb laying around? What will happen if we set this tank up (without plants of course) away from the window with just the actinic on for 12 hrs a day. Probably also need to throw in some ferts. Anybody have some extra time and equipment on their hands?