Drew04

I have a lighting question that I hope someone can shed some...um...light on:

I have a standard florescent bulb that we keep on all day, trying to give our plants as much light as possible. Not sure of the watts per gallon though, the light came with the tank.

Recently, I bought 2 red LED light fixtures as seen here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=300281711783

I placed one of the light bars under the gravel, inside a cave. The red light shines out of the cave openings and has a pretty cool, almost evil look to it. I siliconed the other light bar to the underside of the aquarium hood, shining down into the water. The LEDs are left on during the day, along with the white florescent.

At night, I turn off the florescent light and leave the red LEDs on, which creates an amazing red glow from the tank. It really looks nice and provides a dim light source in the middle of the night if anyone needs to go downstairs for something to drink.

My question is: Do the fish see all light as light only or is red light acceptable for night time use? I'd hate to think I've been exposing them to 24 hours/day of 'daylight'. Do they see a difference in color ranges of light, and/or the differences between florescent and LED?

Butterfly

Don't know about red light but lots of people use blue(moon lights) at night to observe their fish after the lights go out.
carol

fishlover78

I don't see why not, its not like the main light on the tank is on all the time, people use blue lights, why not red.

Phinny12

I have moonlighting in my 55 gallon. I can see that my fish rest at night in that light...it seems pretty natural. I am not sure about red light bu if it a low level light like the moonlights I would think it has the same effect on the fish. It sound very cool!

small-fish

i used to have a blue led strip light under my hood, but with my new lights i do not have it anymore

Drew04

Ill take some pictures tonight once it gets dark and post them. I really like the effect

Coffey5030

the wave length of the red light should probably irritate the fish even less than the blue. that is if there eyes are at all like ours.