Lighting My 60 Us Gal Cichlid Tank

[nork]

Good evening to us stateside, good early morning to you across the puddle.

I'm still in the process of cycling, but I have everything setup and ready to go, except the lighting.

Right now we're using the stock hood that was included with our tank ensamble, which houses 2 18" fluoro bulbs. I'm not sure which type of bulbs these are, I imagine they're generic brand 6500K'ish lights, I haven't pulled them out to look yet.

I've been researching a lot of lighting options lately, and eventually I'd like to get a brand new hood and light setup, but for now, I'll have to stick with the stock and do the most cost efficient lighting upgrade, which is simply replacing the bulbs.

Our tank will house African Cichlids, and right now we have 4 live anubias plants.

I've been seeing the actinic bulbs, and a lot of people seem to suggest these for cichlids in combination with 7000K (give or take a few hundred Ks) spectrum bulb.

Since I only have 2 fixtures for lights at the moment, would I be best off getting 2 50/50s, or should I get 1 100% actinic light and another 7000K bulb better suited for my plants?

If I go the latter route, would doing one side actinic and another a daylight spectrum bulb make our tank look half blue and half white?

I want lighting that's perfect for 3 things.. 1. The health of the fish, 2. The health of the plants, and 3. Our visual pleasure (we want all the colors of the tank to "pop", I'm afraid if I do 1 bulb actinic and the other daylight, the left side of our tank will be blue while the other side is bright white, we do not want this.)

What type of lighting would you suggest to satisfy this 3 part checklist for us?

 

[waterdrop]

I think the use of the word "actinic" may have been more about marketing than anything else as I believe its simply a term that loosely describes bulbs that emit somewhat more energy in the blue to ultraviolet range of light. A graph where the horizontal axis spans the visible, and nearby, frequencies and the vertical axis measures emission energy at each specific frequency would be a much better descriptor of the photons coming off the device. Actinic bulbs are the ones used in restaurant insect catching lights and are also used to grow algae on marine coral collections.

I'm not aware of -any- spectrum of light being particularly needed to aid the health of -any- particular species of fish, but this may be an opportunity to learn. Perhaps davos or Assaye or Wills or somebody familiar with african cichlids could tell me the story on this? I know that besides the actual function of growing the algae, the light with more blue-white spectrum content is enjoyed for its ability to be reflected by a rippling surface and create a bit more of a high-noon sunshine effect, especially on white sand.

I have never visited the two lakes that are most famous for being the original home of most all of our african cichlids in the hobby, has anybody ever done this? Or can somebody describe the lighting and planting and water clarity that would be typical there? This would be interesting to know!

Sorry nork, back to the topic! As far as plants and normal freshwater tanks go, plain old 6500K color is fine. Light with extra energy in the blue/uv spectrum really will promote algae and this must be taken into account I think.

The very first thing most plant hobbyists probably wondered about when reading your post was what diameter the bulbs are. Are they 5/8 inch, 1 inch, more? The "T" scale is usually used to describe fluorescent bulb diameter (an industry thing) where each number represents an eighth of an inch, so "T8" is 1 inch diameter. Hobbyists use a rule of thumb based on the typical efficiency of the older T8 and T12 lamps to know roughly the photons (light energy) that will hit the leaves when a given number of watts is pumped in to the fixture. So, for example, a 15 watt T8 tube lighting a 15 US gallon tank would be discussed as a "one watt per gallon" planted tank. One to 1.5 w/g is the typical watt/gallon range used for lighting "low-light" plants like your Anubias. Its easier to be successful with a planted tank that sticks with species that like a particular light-level range.

Once you know your bulb diameter and wattage, you can post that up for the members to discuss.

This business of lighting your plants with either "low-light" range lighting, if they are low-light species or "high-tech" range, if they need to be up in that range is the beginning of the process to meet the 2nd requirment you describe, that of the health of your plants. The "high-tech" approach is quite expensive and complicated though and you can read about that in our planted section. Nutrition and Carbon also come in to play in plant health.

The third thing of the "look" is the real one where "K" colors of bulbs will come into effect. You just have to try different combos! It can take time and/or luck to get that to come out the way you want it. In my opinion its a significant thing in the overall look of your tank though!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Davo86]

Presuming you are keeping Malawi Mbuna, which are rock dwellers which spend most of their lives weaving in and out of rocks and caves fairly lowdown beneath the waters surface, then obviously for their benefit strong bright lighting should be avoided.

However obviously for your benefit and for the health of any plants that you 'try' to grow in a mbuna setup you do need fairly adequate lighting, and therefore your average T8s work perfectly well for this purpose,

Some people actually prefer the blue and pink spectrum bulbs which tend to bring out certain colours in the fish, one of these mixed with a subtle white bulb is usually best to suit all parties

I should also add, it is best to avoid stark white lighting if you have light coloured substrate, the glare reflecting off the gravel leads to pale stressed fish which will notably hide during the daylight hours.

 

[nork]

Presuming you are keeping Malawi Mbuna, which are rock dwellers which spend most of their lives weaving in and out of rocks and caves fairly lowdown beneath the waters surface, then obviously for their benefit strong bright lighting should be avoided.

However obviously for your benefit and for the health of any plants that you 'try' to grow in a mbuna setup you do need fairly adequate lighting, and therefore your average T8s work perfectly well for this purpose,

Some people actually prefer the blue and pink spectrum bulbs which tend to bring out certain colours in the fish, one of these mixed with a subtle white bulb is usually best to suit all parties

I should also add, it is best to avoid stark white lighting if you have light coloured substrate, the glare reflecting off the gravel leads to pale stressed fish which will notably hide during the daylight hours.

Ok, so you say one of these (referring to a blue or pink bulb, in my case, blue) mixed with a subtle white bulb is usually best.

So when I have a blue bulb on the left side and a regular bulb on the right side, will my tank not be split as far as color? Ex: Half is blue, half is white? This would look tacky in my opinion, and since I have 2 anubias on each side of my aquarium, one pair of plants would benefit from the regular light while the other is basking in constant blue light. We're going for symmetry here, so because of that, would I be best off getting two 50/50 bulbs? As those are half actinic blue and half 6500K I believe, which would be great for our visual wants as well as the needs of the fish and plants, as yes, we will be housing mbunas and the 4 anubias plants should do well with low-medium lighting.

I know with fluoro lighting, that the visible light beam is actually spread out, and not necessarily concentrated/fixed in one area, so would having 1 actinic light on the left side with 1 regular bulb on the right side, cause the light colors to "mix" in the tank, and not noticably show a blue/white split?

It's sounding like two 50/50 Coralife's are the ticket to satisfy what we're after here. Do you agree?

 

[Davo86]

How do you mean left and right? don't you have a bulb at the front and one just behind running the full length of the tank?
when they are positioned like this they do blend together quite well,

I'm guessing the Coralifes are an american brand as it is one i have not heard of? however as long as it is classed as standard intensity as opposed to high intensity then they should be fine,

Just come across this which may be of some use
Most of the bulbs they suggest are generally sold in most tank setups available (in the UK at least)

TBH i think you may be over-thinking the lighting, mbuna pretty much live in the dark in the wild, and really do look best under your average aquarium bulb with a dark background and a relatively medium to dark substrate, high intensity or vivid white lights will just stress and make them shy

 

[nork]

This is my exact tank: Marineland 60 Gal Ensemble

I'm still using the stock hood, and as you can see in that photograph, there is 1 light over the left side and 1 light over the right side.

The aquarium is 48" long by 12" deep, the lights are two 18" fluoros that sit side-by-side longways.

I was thinking about picking up a couple of these: http/www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2753938&lmdn=Brand

Reading the description, do you think these would work to satisfy our wants and the fish/plant needs? I'm assuming Coralife may be an American brand then, sorry for the curveball there.

Like I said, we want the fish to be happy and healthy first and foremost, then for the plants to not die, and lastly for us to find the tank visually pleasing. The substrate I've used is a generic tan-coloured playsand.

 

[nork]

Thanks for the link.

Looking at the wavelength, the Hagen Aqua-Glo appears to be a 50/50ish split between blue and natural daylight colors just like the Coralife 50/50 bulb. It also appears that the Coralife 50/50s aren't made in 18" versions, plus like WD said, "actinic" may just be a loose term for blue light.

I do have an ordinary tan-coloured playsand substrate, but I also have very dark grey/black Mexican river pebbles scattered throughout, so these may absorb some of the bright light to allow me to use 1 Aqua-Glo on each side.

 

[Davo86]

The thing that puts me off the Coralife bulbs is that they say they are ideal for saltwater reefs, however Reefs require the highest intensity bulbs to keep the various corals in peak condition, obviously this is the opposite to what you require?

Also I'll admit I have never seen a hood with a make up like that, and I have worked in a LFS for nearly 8 years now?
usually on a tank of that size you would find 2 42" bulbs that are around 40-50W

but saying that i guess the coralife bulbs would almost be like having a 3ft high intensity bulb which when you compare that to two standard intensity bulbs side by side the light output isn't going to be too different i would have thought?

My only suggestion is to visit a few LFS and see if any have any bulbs that they are willing to show you 'in action' so to speak

 

[nork]

I've never had a tank this size, so this isn't odd to me because it's new to me.

Eventually, I'd love to have a solid length hood/lighting fixture that houses 2 bulbs that span the length of my tank, that way I can do 1 bulb in the front and a different type in the back, but I'm not sure what my options will be considering there's a plastic brace that splits the top of my tank in half.

Unless I could find one that's still houses 18" bulbs, but 2 in each housing that way I could run 4 bulbs.

 

[nork]

Hmm.. ok, so a 60 US gal tank - 10-15% of substrate/decor volume should at the most extreme leave me with a needed 51 watts (subtracting 15% of tank volume (9)) of lights needed, with the suggested rule of 1-3 watts per gallon, so I'm going to need 51-153 watts of lights for my tank.

How am I supposed to acheive this wattage when the max I can acheive given my stock hood is 15w per light, or 30 watts total.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, what's happening is that you are now figuring out that PetSmart didn't give you enough light. That happened to me too but in my case the light strip was separate from the tank lid, which was clear, so it happened I was able to simply buy a second identical strip and double my tubes front to back. It sounds like the cichlids are going to give your plants a hard time, from the way Davo (who is indeed an expert - the guy I'm always looking for when someone wants cichlid advice, lol) talks and to me that means you are going to be better off going "low-light" technique. That means you want to stick to 1 to 1.5 w/g T8 (still not clear what your tube diameters are, or am I forgetting again?) and not go up in the 2w or 3w range or you will get horrible algae.

WD

 

[nork]

The included bulbs are "Marineland" brand F15T8/18" Natural Daylight bulbs... Made in Thailand.

Hope that answers your question as far as what size these are.

All I can say is they're standard 18" fluoro bulbs with the typical 2 prong socket, but "standard" bulbs in the US may not be standard bulbs in the UK/Europe (wherever you may be).