normal flourescents

[badwhiskey]

Will normal flourescents grow anything?

[AZDesertRat]

If you had enough of them with good reflectors and in the right colors. The problem is they don't put out much light and are so big you can't cram enough over the tank.

 

30 years ago before all the lights we have today I had 6- 4 foot fluorescents over a 90G softy reef, four Vitalites and two Actinic 03. Corals available at the time survived but did not thrive. I also had a 20G high with 6x 18" fluorescents in the same colors and had a pretty good reef with a few easy hard corals, mushrooms, zoanthids and even a Sebae anemone but I would never recommend it today with the great inexpensive high output lighting available. One T-5 bulb has more light than 4 regular fluorescents.

[blasterman]

By "normal" I assume we're just talking about standard FL tubes in the 5000-6000k range. They will grow corals just fine, just like they grow plants just fine. They'll just look terrible on your tank.

 

There is no miraculous technology the reefing industry knows about fluorescent tubes that the conventional lighting industry doesn't know. Phosphors are phosphors and ballasts are ballasts.

[badwhiskey]

my lfs has soft corals under normal flourescents and the corals look decent but the corals may be new?