Fluval Aquasky 2.0 vs Fluval Plant 3.0

[powerdyne6]

Any reason why I should go with the more expensive Plant 3.0 than the Aquasky? I am currently going to be running a low/medium tech tank.

The Plant 3.0 looks to he the better light overall but if ones not looking to run a high tech planted aquarium should I just go with the Aquasky? Or should I future proof myself in case my planted tank demands change? This would be going on my 75 Gallon.

Any difference in programmable options for the two?

Thanks

 

[CaptainBarnicles]

If you're not going to run Co2 I wouldn't bother, the aquasky is ample for most plants I'd say

 

[Byron]

The colour temperature (spectrum) of the Plant 3 seems better, at 6500K. The Aquasky gives a range from 3000K to 25,000K. I've no idea how these might be controllable, but you do not want anything above 6500K both for plant growth and algae problems. Over a dual T8 tube 90g I had one tube at 6500K and one at 11,000K for as year and it caused algae issues. Returning to one 6500K and one 5000K solved this, and the plants did better.

 

[seangee]

This is the aquasky 30W in my tank. Its 40cm from the light to the substrate and this is with everything cranked up to 100%. This tank is 1m wide so the light is almost edge to edge. It does have a bit of frogbit to penetrate and is adequate for what I need in this low light tank. I haven't experimented with any of the funky weather effects or adjusting the colour temp. This gets a 2 hour ramp up in the morning and a 2 hour ramp down at night with 10 hours of everything at 100% in between. Its only been in a week but this seems about right for the tank.

And yes it does look green , the effect looks good to me blended with the tannins in the blackwater tank, I may actually skip the tannins at tomorrow's wc just to see what that looks like.

Edit: Here is a link to the manual for the controlling app.

 

[powerdyne6]

The colour temperature (spectrum) of the Plant 3 seems better, at 6500K. The Aquasky gives a range from 3000K to 25,000K. I've no idea how these might be controllable, but you do not want anything above 6500K both for plant growth and algae problems. Over a dual T8 tube 90g I had one tube at 6500K and one at 11,000K for as year and it caused algae issues. Returning to one 6500K and one 5000K solved this, and the plants did better.

My main concern would be the colour temp. Would it be safe to assume 100% light intensity across all colours would give me 25000K?

How do I know what percentage of light will give me 6500K?

I called Fluval earlier today and the lady couldn’t give me the specifics.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

For whatever it's worth, I ran a fluval aquasky at full intensity (all colors turned on all the way, with half hour of dawn and dusk at either end of the day) on a 10" deep tank for a couple years and had lush plant growth with very little algae.

 

[Byron]

My main concern would be the colour temp. Would it be safe to assume 100% light intensity across all colours would give me 25000K?

How do I know what percentage of light will give me 6500K?

I called Fluval earlier today and the lady couldn’t give me the specifics.

This is my issue with the light. I don't have one of these, and I have not seen the instructions, so I've no idea how much adjustment there is. I will say that in my experience trying five different LED lights a few years back (never did find one I would want), it is the white light makeup that is important. If the white diodes have a colour temp in the 5000K to 6500K range, it is good light for plants. The red diodes, blue diodes and green diodes themselves are useless. The units with these that I saw caused the colour streaks down into the water, which looked odd and I suspect provide poor light as far as the plants are concerned. The colours have to be mixed in a white light for best effect.

 

[seangee]

My main concern would be the colour temp. Would it be safe to assume 100% light intensity across all colours would give me 25000K?

That would be bright blue. I use a 30 minute moonlight setting that is indeed bright blue and probably the 250000. I turned everything up because my mini lightmeters (ambulia and hygrophila) do not close after 10 hours where they are shaded by the frogbit - so I figured I would give then as much as possible. I expect the green tint is heavily influenced by the fact that it is being filtered by a green canopy of frogbit.
This is what my setup looks like

 

[seangee]

I chose auto for simplicity - this is what's available if you opt for "pro" mode. 10 Timeslots where you can choose the % of red, green, blue and white. Settings you see are default - at least that's what I assume because I haven't touched them

 

[powerdyne6]

This is my issue with the light. I don't have one of these, and I have not seen the instructions, so I've no idea how much adjustment there is. I will say that in my experience trying five different LED lights a few years back (never did find one I would want), it is the white light makeup that is important. If the white diodes have a colour temp in the 5000K to 6500K range, it is good light for plants. The red diodes, blue diodes and green diodes themselves are useless. The units with these that I saw caused the colour streaks down into the water, which looked odd and I suspect provide poor light as far as the plants are concerned. The colours have to be mixed in a white light for best effect.

Did a little more digging and the White LED’s are 6500k and I guess mixing in the other colours will lower and raise the colour temps.

I also read that the Plant3.0 colour range was 3000K to 25000K it just wasn’t written in the description you probably read on their website.

 

[seangee]

Well today I removed enough frogbit to fill a 5 litre bucket. This still left most of the surface covered. Now the light is definitely bright enough. I am not going to turn it down unless I need to because by the end of the week the frogbit will have grown back enough that it will likely be too dim. Not sure how obvious the diffrence will be from the pic because of the phone's auto exposure