PhoenixFirewall
11-14-2005, 09:23 PM
I recently got back into my hobby of keeping fish, and figured I'd start small with a 10gal tank. After several trips to my LFS I've noticed that they've come out with some pretty interesting stuff in the last 4 years.
Some of the tanks had hoods with a really cool way of lighting the tank. The hoods would have a single full spectrum bulb (what I've always used), and they also had a blue tinted (or it might just be purely blue spectrum) bulb. I inquired how it worked and the owner showed me. Two independant switches turn on and off each light. Darkness, full spectrum, full spectrum + blue (wich gives phenomenal coloration on everything in the tank), and blue.
So a long story short after my short term goals of maintaining my 10gal and medium goals of preparing a planted 29gal or even larger, my mind suddenly came up with this prospectively awesome idea. I have a friend who is in engineering school who could make the mechanics of what I have planed work, but I wanted everyones input from here.
What if my friend and I could rig a hood that has 3 bulbs (assuming one bulb stretches across the entire tank). One bulb being the blue, another being the full spectrum, and the 3rd bulb being one on the red side of the spectrum. Have all of my lighting attached to a timing device that turns on and off my lights automatically on a 24 hour timer throughout the day. Something along the lines of this....
12:00am - No lights
6:00am - Red spectrum
8:00am - Red + Full spectrum
10:00am - Full spectrum
4:00pm - Red + Full spectrum
6:00pm - Red + Blue spectrum
8:00pm - Blue spectrum
11:00pm - No lights
Keep in mind this is not set in stone. I'd have to play around with variants of colors and whatnot to get the proper effect.
My reasoning for this was that I realized that the times of day are not the same colors all the time. With this I can simulate the changes of light throughout the day. I'm reasonably sure that between my friend and me, we can make this work. I just want to know from the comunity what effects this would have on the fish and plants themselves. Would they like it, would they go insane from the stress of a light change, etc? Also, has anyone ever done this or heard of anyone trying this before?
Some of the tanks had hoods with a really cool way of lighting the tank. The hoods would have a single full spectrum bulb (what I've always used), and they also had a blue tinted (or it might just be purely blue spectrum) bulb. I inquired how it worked and the owner showed me. Two independant switches turn on and off each light. Darkness, full spectrum, full spectrum + blue (wich gives phenomenal coloration on everything in the tank), and blue.
So a long story short after my short term goals of maintaining my 10gal and medium goals of preparing a planted 29gal or even larger, my mind suddenly came up with this prospectively awesome idea. I have a friend who is in engineering school who could make the mechanics of what I have planed work, but I wanted everyones input from here.
What if my friend and I could rig a hood that has 3 bulbs (assuming one bulb stretches across the entire tank). One bulb being the blue, another being the full spectrum, and the 3rd bulb being one on the red side of the spectrum. Have all of my lighting attached to a timing device that turns on and off my lights automatically on a 24 hour timer throughout the day. Something along the lines of this....
12:00am - No lights
6:00am - Red spectrum
8:00am - Red + Full spectrum
10:00am - Full spectrum
4:00pm - Red + Full spectrum
6:00pm - Red + Blue spectrum
8:00pm - Blue spectrum
11:00pm - No lights
Keep in mind this is not set in stone. I'd have to play around with variants of colors and whatnot to get the proper effect.
My reasoning for this was that I realized that the times of day are not the same colors all the time. With this I can simulate the changes of light throughout the day. I'm reasonably sure that between my friend and me, we can make this work. I just want to know from the comunity what effects this would have on the fish and plants themselves. Would they like it, would they go insane from the stress of a light change, etc? Also, has anyone ever done this or heard of anyone trying this before?