Another Terrascape lighting question.

Hi Keith, It does not really matter they will all work. Its down to the colour you like the look of. I use 6500k day light nice crisp white others like the blues and reds other LED or tubes give

 

As Roy said but T5 are more efficient than T8, smaller / slimmer, less ugly and now cheaper to buy and you have more of a choice of different bulbs if you require different spectrum's to suit your own needs.

The plant bulbs on there own will make everything look pink but with one daylight bulb it hides the pink.

My setup have 3x daylight 6500k, 2x plant 6500k and the redder one is a zoomed florasun 5600k



This is the difference..

Daylight bulbs only



With daylight plus red spectrum bulbs

 

P.S I only run these bulbs for limited times

2x daylight are on 10.00-18.00 (8hrs) dimmed at 50% and then the other 4 come on for 4 hours 12.00-16.00 (4hrs) also at 50% power

The light fitting is 30cm above the tank (75cm above the substrate)

As you can see I have zero algae, on full power (100%), longer periods and with no co2 I would probably have every known algae going..