found old NO light fixture-General Reef Topics-3reef Forums

new2salt2 · 06-11-2004, 06:42 AM

i jsut found my old 40W single bulb light fixture. right now i have 2 PC 50/50 bulbs. would it be worth the time to make the PC bulbs all white and then buy an actinic bulb for the NO fixture and add to the tank?

rayjay · 06-11-2004, 03:50 PM

I have no experience with PC's so my advice take with a grain of salt.
In my opinion though, any light added is an improvement.
Before spending money on new PC lamps, why not just see what it looks like using that fixture with a GE Daylight Ultra 40W lamp from Walmart, or any other GE supplier? ($4.19 Canadian here in London Ontario) It's a 6500K lamp with lumen output of 3050. This shouldn't change the appearance of the tank much other than to brighten it a little and you would have spent very little to add more output.
If you go with white PC's, it will cost a fair bit more, and, with only one actinic in the NO fixture, you may find the color more like a warm white instead of daylight.
I've been using these GE Daylight Ultra's now for about 8-9 yrs.

new2salt2 · 06-12-2004, 09:09 PM

ok ill check that out.. i put the old bulb on it and it i think is a 50/50 single tube bulb. brightens a bit , but ill hit walmart..
is this the only bubls you use? what you raise in tank? Size?

rayjay · 06-13-2004, 09:11 AM

I have seven systems totaling 850g plus the sumps, and all are lit up with NO fluorescent lighting.
I like to use one GE Daylight Ultra for every Philips Actinic 03 but while the GE is cheap, the Philips Actinic is not so some fish only tanks have all GE but they look a little yellow, where the others have mostly 5 GE's and 3 Philips for a total of 8 40w lamps per hood.
I keep softies, LPS, 2 crocea clams plus one other, and one sps, a hydnaphora.
See my web site for about 20 pages of pictures.
2-90's, 2=75's, 1-65,1-55, 2-40's, and 1-20g that has 2-20w lights.

new2salt2 · 06-13-2004, 07:37 PM

do i have to have an actinic bulb? what is the purpose?

rayjay · 06-14-2004, 01:16 PM

No you don't need to have actinic. You have actinic mixed with daylight in your 50/50 PC lamps.
For economical reasons I use the NO lamps and the Daylight lamps are too yellow for my liking so I use actinics to make the light "whiter". It' s strictly an appearance thing for me and many others.
Actinics are used even with metal halides for many hobbyists.