Actinic?

[Vivid-Dawn]

I suppose this question goes here, since the only reason I'm bothering with better lights is because I want to plant my tank (and not have any die, like they have the last 3 times!).

What's "actinic"? I'm browsing ads for lighting stuff, and it keeps being boasted. I assume it's a suplemental thing (I usually see it with and/or instead-of lunar lights). I don't think I need bluer hues for plants, do I?

 

[anvil63]

No you don't need it unless you want to do a marine setup. In fact, in a planted tank actinic bulbs are a bad choice. The light is too high in the color spectrum for higher plants (ie. anything but algae for the most part) to use. A better bulb choice would be ones in the 6700 K range.

Carl