Some Creative Aquarium Lighting Ideas for Home
The complete lighting units that mount on your tank are the aquarium lighting fixtures. To have an aquarium lighting fixture there are two reasons behind it as you can take the assistance of electrician Northern Beaches in terms of installation.
First, to simulate the natural light your fish would get in the wild, secondly, for you to see the fish and plants, and enjoy the vivid colors.
1. Light Fixtures for Freshwater Fish-only Tanks
Fish-only freshwater tanks are the most popular first aquariums. Artificial rocks and plastic plants decorate the tank, with no living plants. The beauty of this for budding aquarists is that you don't have to get a fancy light fixture, as fish don't photosynthesize!
You can hone your lighting choice down to two factors. For your freshwater fish, you need to simulate the natural day/night light. Second, to show off their colors, display your fish.
Popular freshwater tank fish come from tropical parts of the world where they live in shallow waters and get regular sunshine. Popular aquarium fish such as the cichlids, gourami, betta are all great for new aquarium owners. For bulbs, use full-color spectrum 'color enhancing' bulbs.
Your fish will get stressed and unhealthy under unnatural light cycles. Keep on the main daylighting no more than 8 hours a day. The main reason people go wrong with lighting for these systems is they do too much light and get algae problems.
So, it is better to take the advice of an electrician Northern Beaches Sydney before installing the lightings. Never run actinic lights on your freshwater system - algae will multiply. Running the lights too long will promote algae bloom. It's best to control the aquarium lights with an automatic timer.
Get an aquarium lighting fixture with lunar lights built-in, for the best aquarium lighting experience. The moonlights are inexpensive LEDs. Hybrid lighting fixtures keep each light source on separate power circuits. Automatic timers can switch each light to give a natural day/night lighting cycle, including dawn and dusk light.
2. Light Fixtures for Freshwater Planted Tanks
Freshwater planted systems are the next step up from fish-only tanks. Live plants nicer to look at, and with these primary producers in your tank, you've got a complete self-sustaining ecology in your tank.
Keeping live plants, your aquarium lighting fixture must provide the vital light that plants need to photosynthesize. Plants use chlorophyll to photosynthesize; this absorbs light at certain wavelengths (430nm and 680nm). They require light from both the red and blue parts of the color spectrum.
3. Light Fixtures for Saltwater Fish-only Tanks
Now let's move on to the saltwater marine tanks. Lighting choices are simple for saltwater fish-only tanks, without corals to think about. Popular saltwater fish like clownfish, angelfish, and gobies don't need uber-lighting fixtures that can be installed with the help of Northern Beaches emergency electricians.
It is mainly to delight the viewer, with the aquarium lighting system you choose. After all, no one wants a dark box in their room. A daylight lamp of 5500K up to 10000K is a reasonable choice.
Feel free to experiment with different bulbs till you get the fish colors popping just right. Just don't overdo it with your photoperiod. Keep your daylighting down to less than 10 hours per day; too much lighting will boost algae growth.
One caveat - you may get the hankering to turn your fish-only tank into a mini-reef at some point in the future.
4. Light Fixtures for Reef Tanks
Finally, we come to the most challenging of tanks - the reef tank. The choice of aquarium lighting fixtures is critical to the health of your corals and their symbiotic zooxanthellae.
These are beneficial algae that give nutrition to the corals. In return for the coral providing a nice safe home, the symbiotic algae repay their host with nutrition from photosynthesis. Coral needs this to stay healthy. Getting the right light to the zooxanthellae is the main lighting issue for reek-keepers.
It also depends on your corals. These are usually categorized under three categories. Hard corals (stony corals) have an exterior skeleton built from calcium. Given that the light must penetrate through the water, and through the hard body of the coral to reach the photosynthesizing algae, these kinds of corals can require advanced aquarium lighting fixtures.
Generally, soft corals need less intense light than the hard corals need to survive, meaning you can get away with High Output fluorescent lamps for the soft corals.
There are many factors that go into running a successful aquarium, and choosing correct aquarium lighting fixtures along with the help of electrical contractors of Northern Beaches for your tank environment makes all the difference between success and failure of your aquarium project.
