Hi,

I was looking up some info about lighting in aquaria, the grow of
plants and the formation of algae.

In this search I came across an interresting, and for me new, fact.

In short it says :
"Algae use the blue side of the spectrum while plants can also grow
healthy on the red side only"

So excluding the blue side can / should reduce the growth of algae !!

This was stunning to me because special lamps for plants have both
blue AND red spectra in them.

I use the following picture for further explanation :
http://users.pandora.be/worldofbudgerigars/!spectrum1.jpg

legend :
A) TL - warm white (normal TL)

E) TL - GroLux (special lamp for plants)

I) daylight (sun)

J) spectrum used by plants for fotosynthese

What do we see ?

J is the spectrum which plants should need, so they made the lamp E
(almost identical spectrum)

But now I read that algae use mostly / only the blue side while plants
don't really need the blue side and can live with the red side alone.

So this means that a normal TL (A) should be a far better choice.

Now I can understand why sunlight (J) is so bad to our aquarium in
regard to algae growth (see how much blue there is in sunlight !)

now MY QUESTION :
Is there any scientific source (link / book) which deals with the
fact the algae use basically blue and plants need only red ?

I don't believe everything I read ;-)

TIA

PérRµ§h

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