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Hi folks

Hope to set up my new 260 litre tank in the very near future. Have read somewhere that u can have a moonlight tube/bulb to simulate night and see the nocturnal fish in the set up.

Has any one on this site heard of this?

If so how do u go about recreating this type of lighting? The tank does carry two tubes but losing one of these would diminish the "daylight". Have searched the lfs in the area and they have not heard of such moon lighting!

I thought of having a blue bulb in a reading lamp shining on one side of the tank - would this work?

Thanks in anticipation

Dave

some people use LEDs

Thanks - it looks like spending again this week end

Why not use an actinic light, they are a blue light. Just go and ask your LFS for an actinic light and they should know what you are talking about.

My lfs do sell actinic lighting - but I would need to attched another light fitting and there is not enough room in the hood. I hope to use the LED method but can not find any in the UK lfs - have searched the web to no avail.

Do any UK members know where I can purchase any from???


Also whats the difference between American Gallons and UK Gallons/Litres??

Not sure on lighting issues would suggest phoning round a few suppliers. As for US/UK gallon comparisons, if you go into the calculator section of the site and into tank capacity just put in dimensions and it will give you an approx. value in both types alongside litres

Are actincts lights ok for fw plants? I got told by a few LFS not to use actincts as they are not suitable for fw plants.

Thanks everyone

Just keep in mind that you're talking about very dim light -- the light intensity of the full Moon is only about 1/500,000th that of the Sun! (It only looks brighter to us because our eyes are ingeniously designed by Nature to switch back and forth between two different types of light-detecting cells, one for bright light and one for dim.)

(I accidentally put this message on your other thread.)

Why not use an actinic light, they are a blue light. Just go and ask your LFS for an actinic light and they should know what you are talking about.

Are actincts lights ok for fw plants? I got told by a few LFS not to use actincts as they are not suitable for fw plants

Most actinic lighting you can buy is too intense for freshwater night lighting. Moreover, freshwater fish and invertebrate do not require this spectrum of lighting to survive, as corals and possibly other marine inhabitants do. Marine lighting is meant to recreate the effects of sun/moon through xxxx amount of marine water, so something gets lost in the traslation when you use it on a freshwater tank.
Will actinic do anything for fw plants? Yes. Are they suitable for fw plants? Not really. They are nowhere near optimal for fw plants, nor fw inhabitants in general.

If using moonlights in a freshwater tank is something you want to really do, I'd go with led lighting, and not over do it. Unless some recent study came out I'm not aware of, moonlight lighting in a freshwater tank is mostly for the fishkeeper's benefit, so keeping the amount of that lighting to a minimum as to not disturb the fish with a intense laser show or something is probably the best.