Aquarium lighting is a bit of a specialist area. Freshwater or salt? Coral, plants, or fish? Lighting is usually bluer for underwater plants. Often, lights are chosen as much to be looked at as just to grow the plants, so bulbs with high CRI might be used. Actinic bulbs are often used to boost the blue spectrum. I don't think a warm white cool white combo is going to work here.

>>'Freshwater or salt?' FRESHWATER

Coral, plants, or fish? PLANTS AND FISH

people have discussed the glowlux and daylight combo, i've found it effective in shorter tanks. anything like that in t-8's?

i have a bunch of GE 'starcoat' lamps. f32t8-spx35 lamps left from a job. they are quite 'warm white' in appearance. might these be ok? (love to use them up.)

rick

ooooooooooooh! Starcoat 3500K!

They are good for stagehouse lighting in an auditorium but I think they won't work well as plant lighting. They don't have a good spectrum. I could be wrong....I haven't used starcoat 3500K under plants, only Philips 3500K, which is not as orange.

To my knowledge.....they may have daylight T8's at HD and a growlux t8 there....at least in my location. $9 a tube!!!!!

-j-

You should be aiming for something around 7,000K for freshwater lighting. That is the colour of light a few metres down in freshwater, quite blue. A typical "daylight" fluorescent will be around 6,500K so there's a starting point. I would think of your four overdriven 32W tubes as a minimum, you may have to add more for good growth on some plants. The Starcoat is nothing as fancy as the name, just a modern deluxe triphosphor tube. Its fine for plants, I can't imagine any reputable auditorium would even consider them. CRI 85 is typical for a deluxe triphosphor, pretty much like a regular triphosphor with a bit wider spectrum and a bit more far red. The Starcoat tubes do have good lumen maintenance. 3,500K is pretty red spectrum for an aquarium, look for something with more blue. When you start looking at the fish, you might decide you don't like the colour rendering. If so you would need to look for a tube with a CRI above 90 which tend to be more expensive and less efficient which is why most growers don't bother with them, but they make colours look better.

QUOTE:" Its fine for plants, I can't imagine any reputable auditorium would even consider them."

You are talking about my school, ye know. Nothing is straight about it. They look nice when they are dimmed to 10%. Makes the room look candle lit.

-j-