Upgraded lighting last night.

[Pepere]

I had been running a Finnex Planted Plus ALC with set lighting color and intensity turned on and off with a wifi switch.  To minimize startling the fish and to provide a bit more lighting to the front of the tank I had Fluval 3.0 on the front of the tank.  it would gradually brighten starting a half hour before the main light flipped on and dim for a half hour after shutting off….   To minimize the yellow washed out effect I set red (pink) at 100%, blue at 25%, cool white at 100%,   Pure white at 50%, and warm white at 15%.  The Warm white provides the majority of intensity normally but a lot of yellow.  Set in this way I still got a yellowish washed out look and the lowest leaves were still suffering from not quite enough light.

I bought several Nicrew inline timer dimmers and now use this to turn the Finnex ALC lights on and off with gradual brightening and dimming.  I replaced the Fluval with another Finnex ALC.

The lights are set with 100% red, 50% green, 30% blue and 70% white. It gives a little more contrast, and less yellow and washing out.  I might try some more fine tuning…

I also added a wavemaker to add some flow and keep the co2 bubbles in suspension better..

[Pepere]

Because someone asked me what the tank looks like with just a Fluval 30 light on here is a photo with all channels at maximum intensity.

 

They commented they were not seeing a serious difference between the tank with a finnex and a fluval and the two finnexes.  I mentioned that the presence of 1 finnex helped the Fluval a lot, and the Fluval had been dialed in to minimize its aesthetic shortcomings…

 

light in rear half of the tank,

light moved to front of tank.

Because the Ipad camera adjust the setting for light the difference is not as pronounced as in person.

The Finnex lights illuminates the right and left margins of the tank far better due to more width of the light bar.  The Fluval is a 24 inch bar with extensions to use on a 30 inch tank. Also the tank overall appears less illuminated, and much more pronounced yellow in person…

 

It is going to be a moot point soon for most people however as the Finnex planted Plus ALC version is being discontinued once remaining stock is sold out.24 inch and 48 are sold out online from Finnex and only 20, 30, and 36 inch are available.

For the time being mine suit me well on my current display tanks..