Light bulb: what color to use?

[HimSelf]

Hi everyone,

I am going to buy a MH setup for my 90 gal (deep) fresh water tank and was wondering what color spectrum to use.

Here is the light I'm going to pickup.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300742905075&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123#ht_1830wt_802

As u can see the light is around 700watt. 2x250 watt HQI MH +  4 x 54 watt T5. I understand this is too powerful for my setup hence I would like just to turn on the T5 from 10am to 10pm so my kids can see the fish and then turn on the MH for maybe 5 hours at night when everyone is home to enjoy.

My main objective:

-Fish color and plants look great
-Grow plants

Question:

- from your experience what kelvin (6500k, 10,000k, 15,000k, ect) display your fresh water fish and plants the best?

- how about this setup? Two MH running 6500k for plant growth (full spectrum) and 50/50 for the T5? Would this be too yellow when both MH and T5 are running?

Thanks

[exv152]

I am going to buy a MH setup for my 90 gal (deep) fresh water tank and was wondering what color spectrum to use.

Here is the light I'm going to pickup.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300742905075&ssPageName=ADME:X:RTQ:US:1123#ht_1830wt_802

As u can see the light is around 700watt. 2x250 watt HQI MH +  4 x 54 watt T5. I understand this is too powerful for my setup hence I would like just to turn on the T5 from 10am to 10pm so my kids can see the fish and then turn on the MH for maybe 5 hours at night when everyone is home to enjoy.

My main objective:

-Fish color and plants look great
-Grow plants

Question:

- from your experience what kelvin (6500k, 10,000k, 15,000k, ect) display your fresh water fish and plants the best?

- how about this setup? Two MH running 6500k for plant growth (full spectrum) and 50/50 for the T5? Would this be too yellow when both MH and T5 are running?

You could run the T5's alone (4x 54w) with 6500 temp for 8-10 hours daily total.  If you increase the lighting you'll need to inject CO2 and add daily ferts to keep up with the plants' demand for nutrients, and you'd have to go with a good CO2 diffusion method ie; a reactor, because CO2 diffusion over 75 gal is pretty tricky. As for the temp being 6500k you want the reds and blues for the plants, bulbs over 10,000k bulbs have no red.