Lights without the Fish Disco look? Wishing for old-school incandescent light color...

[PineSong]

This is my first foray into a planted tank with lights as my last Walstad-style tank sat in a sunny window. I have a Finnex Stingray on my new 20g long tank, and I'm just not a fan of the red, white and blue disco/political convention look of the lights when viewing the tank in the evenings, and feel like the whiteness doesn't enhance the fish the way natural sunlight does.

I get that the light is good for plants, so for now I am just going to time the light to be on  when I'm at work, which should take care of the plants, but I'd like to know if there's a way to approximate warm incandescent lighting with a different fixture-- reading some posts about lights it seems like with a Fluval light you can choose warm white and eliminate the blue if you want to?

What I'd like just for enjoying the look of the tank is the color of light I used to get from the long incandescent bulbs that were over my childhood (1970's) tank.

Any advice on getting a warm incandescent light look, welcome, TIA.

[JakeH]

Several of the other lights that Finnex has available offer this same feature if your looking to save a buck. It’s the 24/7 line. I’m not a fan of the 24/7 mode (I leave mine on max and use a WiFi timer ) but it is nice to be able to adjust for the aesthetic occasionally.

[Koi]

I'm not entirely sure if you can, but I imagine the fluval 3.0s would be able to achieve warm white since you can adjust the blue levels. 

Were you looking for a warm white look specifically with a led fixture? 

If not you can buy a 1 or 2 bulb t8 fixture for fairly cheap and use 3000k-3300k led retrofits (2700k if you want even warmer). Problem is the fixture is only 24 inches long if having full light coverage across the tank matters to you.

Not sure how well the light will show up on picture but this is with a 3300k led fixture.

[Patrick_G]

The Fluval 3.0 has a warm white adjustment and unlike an old incandescent it’ll grow plants. 
 

[PineSong]

On 7/5/2021 at 11:44 PM, Koi said:

I'm not entirely sure if you can, but I imagine the fluval 3.0s would be able to achieve warm white since you can adjust the blue levels. 

Were you looking for a warm white look specifically with a led fixture? 

If not you can buy a 1 or 2 bulb t8 fixture for fairly cheap and use 3000k-3300k led retrofits (2700k if you want even warmer). Problem is the fixture is only 24 inches long if having full light coverage across the tank matters to you.

Not sure how well the light will show up on picture but this is with a 3300k led fixture.

Koi, your tank looks great--I'd be very happy with that level of plant success!

But I think I'll explore the Fluval for the future. I like the idea of being able to have the best kind of light all the way across for growing the plants and then switching it to "viewing color" when I'm most likely to want to be viewing it. 

 

[PineSong]

On 7/5/2021 at 11:54 PM, Patrick_G said:

The Fluval 3.0 has a warm white adjustment and unlike an old incandescent it’ll grow plants. 

Thank you. If the warm white is all that is on, would you guesstimate it looks pretty much like incandescent tank lights from the olden days?

[ARMYVET]

On 7/6/2021 at 11:31 AM, PineSong said:

Thank you. If the warm white is all that is on, would you guesstimate it looks pretty much like incandescent tank lights from the olden days?

Yes it does.  That light does everything but make me a cup of coffee.  I love it!

[Patrick_G]

On 7/6/2021 at 8:31 AM, PineSong said:

Thank you. If the warm white is all that is on, would you guesstimate it looks pretty much like incandescent tank lights from the olden days?

When it gets dark I’ll take a pic with just warm white. 

[Patrick_G]

Fluval Plant with only warm white spectrum 

[PineSong]

Thank you, Patrick. Your plants look fantastic and the color of the light is much nicer than my current light. Fluval added to wishlist!

[sudofish]

Yea the fluval 3.0 is great for it's ease of customization via the app. You can really get the look you want. I have the finnex planted plus 24/7 as well and while you can do similar adjustments it's kind of tedious as the remote isn't that intuitive and if the power goes out it's more work to get the settings back. With the 3.0 if the power goes out you just resync the bluetooth and you're good to go.