Aquarium lighting

Choosing your aquarium lighting is not as simple as putting the glow for your tank and the fishes and more than just the watts per gallon. Setting up your lights, especially if you have a reef or Nano reef, to a, let's say, 3 or 4 watts per gallon for your Nano reef is actually a start for the freshwater plant aquarium, more on the hard corals and less for the fishes. However, it's much more of a basic. There are many factors that you have to consider more than just setting up the watt output. For instance, an incomparable situation is a 150 watt outdoor floodlight and a 150 watt Metal Halide light. In other terms, it boils down to relating apples and oranges. Here are two significant factors for you to consider:

* Kelvin rating - like a 10,000k daylight bulb. Some people wouldn't think about the manufacturers of how true the output of Kelvin is and some would believe so for considerations. The use of Kelvin is the definition of the bulb's heat or energy output and if this is used to a couple of 36 watt PC bulbs, the other 6500K and 10,000K (daylight), the 10,000K bulb is the one with the higher energy output. What really is the definition for Kelvin is that it is a unit with a measure of temperature situated on the thermodynamic temperature scale. A brief description about Kelvin: Kelvin is identified by two points: absolute zero and the other, the triple point of natural water. Absolutely zero is described to have 0 K and -273.15 øC, while the triple point of natural water is described to have precisely about 273.16 K and 0.01 øC.

* Nanometer range - or the spectrum. A Nanometer spike would define that of an actinic bulb at about 420N, the other a UVC bulb defined about 265N, and another is a daylight bulb around 700N that is used to determine the wave span of light energy from radio waves to the matter of cosmic rays. The difference in the wave span measures how the wave influences its surroundings. The difference of the wave span, or wavelength, allows the shortwave of x-ray to get through walls, while long-waved visible light cannot; short-waved x-ray and the max ultraviolet can easily obliterate DNA in existing microorganisms as well as breaking down the organic material while the noticeable light does not.

Hence, your basic freshwater fish tank doesn't necessarily need as much aquarium lighting and will actually do well with one Aqua Glo, Color Max or similar lights for 60 gallon aquarium. Meanwhile, a basic saltwater fish tank does not have that high requirements but more than the freshwater tank, especially if do not fancy the growth of brown algae.