As a cover for my Roma tank, I use panels of walled polycarbonate which have a UV coating on one side. The LED strip is above it. I know these sheets reduce the intensity of light somewhat (and I compensate for that) - but is it likely to affect the 'quality' of light i.e. the spectrum? Does it affect plants? What difference would going 'open top' make?
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Does UV Protection affect light?
- Thread starter PBM3000
- Start date
Edvet
Member
There has been much debate, but in here the general consensus is: quality of light doesn't matter really. To a plant a photon is a photon, it's about the energy not the color/quality.
zozo
Member
As Edvet says.. Any white light contains the full spectrum and will grow plants.. Hence even only blue en red light will if you would find that aestheticaly pleasing..
And that's the point of concern, find a white light source that is aestheticaly pleasing to your eyes where the plant colors looks best to you. The plants don't realy mind as long there is enough of it they will grow. We know the color spectrum of light, but in nature this spectrum aint realy constant as we pesent it in the trade with a number, there is a wide range of among others atmospheric influence on this spectrum before the light hits the surface and plant on it. The plant has evolved to take the best out of what it gets.
In science it is still largely unknow what the plant exactly does with all the colors in the full spectrum.. I believe for now we didn't come much further that it uses most of the blue spectrum to grow and most from the red spectrum to flower. So from an light sources x upbring and energy saving perspective, they developed red and blue light source grow lights and it grows plants. It likely is compairable with macro/micro fertilization.. And blue and red is Macro light and the rest of the spectrum Micro light, the plant obviously does something with it, Since plants under the sun behave different as plants under artificial light. We came very close but yet do not fully understand.
And we can not artificialy recreate sunlight, I guess as long as we can't we will not find out..
And that's the point of concern, find a white light source that is aestheticaly pleasing to your eyes where the plant colors looks best to you. The plants don't realy mind as long there is enough of it they will grow. We know the color spectrum of light, but in nature this spectrum aint realy constant as we pesent it in the trade with a number, there is a wide range of among others atmospheric influence on this spectrum before the light hits the surface and plant on it. The plant has evolved to take the best out of what it gets.
In science it is still largely unknow what the plant exactly does with all the colors in the full spectrum.. I believe for now we didn't come much further that it uses most of the blue spectrum to grow and most from the red spectrum to flower. So from an light sources x upbring and energy saving perspective, they developed red and blue light source grow lights and it grows plants. It likely is compairable with macro/micro fertilization.. And blue and red is Macro light and the rest of the spectrum Micro light, the plant obviously does something with it, Since plants under the sun behave different as plants under artificial light. We came very close but yet do not fully understand.
And we can not artificialy recreate sunlight, I guess as long as we can't we will not find out..
zozo
Member
You might grow flowers..Interesting stuff. I think I’ll go topless for a while
kadoxu
Member
I've used the same for a couple of my tanks. I believe the UV coating needs to be on top to work properly, so I used it upside down just in case.
With a lid you're always going to loose at least a small percentage of light, but I wouldn't worry about it.
With a lid you're always going to loose at least a small percentage of light, but I wouldn't worry about it.
