How do I bring out the colours in my fish ?

[prenzi]

G'day all,

the problem I have is that while the plants in our 950 litre tank are taking off really well all the fish look pretty dull - my wide is beating the sh.. out of me for spending hundreds on new fish (that I think look OK), but she's kind of right: all fish look pretty much the same in colour, no matter whether dwarf cichlids, tetras, or discus.

My suspicion is it's the colour temp of our lighting: we use Tri-Phosphor tubes with a colour temp. of 5,000 K (they were cheap @ Bunnings; wifey wanted a pair of shoes, not darn light for the dumb fishes, on that day... :lol: ). Looking up the spektrum it seems to me that 5,000 K is pretty much yellowish-green, but not anything else. Is that correct, and would I be better off adding some 6,500 to 10,000 K fluoros to the mix, so that the colours come out better ?

Thank you for your help, cheers,

Florian

NB. We have a total of ten 120 cm fluoros over the tank, so there is the opportunity to throw others into the mix.

[CanadianKiwi]

yes, the blue of your fish will pop-out drastically.

I had 2x double 4' fluorescent on a 6' tank.
At first, I used 4 3k fluorescent as they were almost free.

I kept 2 cheep fluorescent and replaced the other 2 with a PowerGlow and AquaGlow. One is considered acnitic and wont show K on the chart if I remember well, but it was very nice with Frontosa.

[Nathan5]

I replaced 2 out of my 4 39W POWERCHROME Midday with 39W POWERCHROME Aqua Flora the red in the fish and plants pops-out. I bought them from guppysaquariumproducts. Have a look at my videos if you want to see the difference, hopefully this will help you.