Understanding marine aquarium lighting

When you look at a marine aquarium, you will see beautiful bright colored fish, rocks, reef aquaria and other underwater inhabitants showcased in a clean and well-lit glass or acrylic tank. A balanced, safe and viable marine aquarium requires stringent water quality monitoring and distinct marine aquarium lighting.

If you are planning on setting up a marine aquarium, it’s imperative to know the differences between aquarium light sources and choose the one that will work best for your budget, your tank and your aquarium inhabitants.

Before you choose your marine aquarium lighting, there are many factors to be aware of and questions to ask yourself and most importantly, what type of aquarium are you planning to have:

• fish only with live rock
• soft coral reef
• full reef
• fish only system

Once you know what type of inhabitants will be living in your aquarium and you know the surface area and the depth of the tank, you can now move on to choosing the perfect lighting solution for your marine aquarium.

Spectrum

There are many different color spectrums of lighting to choose from; red, orange and yellow light will only penetrate a short distance in the water, while blue and white light will penetrate the deepest.

Here is some more information about light spectrum through water:

• Light spectrum is measured by the Kelvin scale. Natural sunlight on a clear day registers at 5500 Kelvin degrees.
• Kelvin temperatures less than 5500 become more red and yellow and the higher the Kelvin temperature the bluer the light is.
• Photo synthetic invertebrates should be kept under lamps rated at or near the Kelvin temperature where the invertebrate was collected.
• Shallow water species should be kept under 10000K lamps while deepwater species would prefer 20000K lighting.

LED Lights

LED lighting has been proven to be cost effective and it’s used as a dependable lighting source. If you do not wish to continually change your broken bulbs or maintain fluorescent lights periodically, perhaps LED lighting is your best option. Aquarium LED lights have a much longer lifespan than metal halide bulbs or fluorescent tubes.

Because LED lights use a small amount of energy, they are a very efficient source and will require less cooling equipment to counteract any that that they produce. If you choose to go with LED lighting, you may need to use a few source points to make sure the light spreads evenly and provides proper concentration for the entire tank.

Unlike fluorescent lighting and metal halide lighting, LED lights have a life of around 50,000 hours (that’s about 14 years at 10 hours a day!) with no noteworthy light quality degradation and less than 20% output reduction over that lifespan. Taking into account how many times you would have to change fluorescent tubes or metal halide bulbs over that period, LED lighting is fantastic value for money.

Having a lighting routine cycle that mimics day and night is beneficial for fish and other inhabitants since it helps to establish a routine, makes them feel secure and allows them to rest. As you can see, each type of lighting source has their advantages and disadvantages. As a general rule, lighting should mimic the sunlight found in the natural habitat of the inhabitants.