Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When I was first putting together my tank I had purchased a Neo Fireball hybrid that came a VERY bright pink! For the first 3 months I had a 50/50 compact lamp on it, and was looking at pics the other night and could not believe how much it had changed. It is just a normal green of most bromeliads currently. I have changed my compact bulb to a 6700K, and am hoping to get some color back into it. Is this gonna happen? If so what would the time frame be like? It is the farthest on the right!

THANKS

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MIKE
4.14 Leopards (SHTCT, and Jungle Albino Trempers)
2.13 Fat Tails (Amels, Hets, and Normals)
1.1 Teratolepis Fasciata
1.3 Crested geckos
0.0.3 Dendrobates Tinctorius (Citronellas)
1.0 Diamond Back Terrapin
14 Snakes (Tri colored hogs, subocs, alterna, rosy boas, and black milks)

I don't think your problem is the kelvin rating as much as intensity. How many watts of lighting are you using? How old were the bulbs you just replaced?

For good coloring I used 72watts of PC lighting on my 10 gallon, and I'm going to be using 192Watts on my 46 Gallon. Just as a reference sunlight is about 960 Watts per square meter.

joe
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3.0.1 Tinc Patricias
0.0.5 Aurotaenia
0.0.2836 Pea Aphids
0.0.4392 Springtails
0.0.1842 FruitFlies

I think there is a lot more to it than that. Watts really do not make a difference. Now watts may help produce more lumens, but all depends on the light. More watts also equal more heat, and more energy costs. I would say the type of light is much more important than the amount of watts, but I am not a light expert either. There is a ton of good information here:
www.doylesdartden.com/lighting.htm

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Kyle
www.kylesphotos.com
Dart Links - still a work in progress
1.2.0 D. leucomelas
1.1.0 D. azureus
1.0.1 D. imitators

Okay,

Wattage is a measure of power consumed, Lumens are the measure of intensity. Efficacy is the measure of efficiency (lumens per watt).

Higher intensity bulbs usually consume more power (watts). So yes there is a relation between power consumed and intensity.

So why does a low watt PC put out more light than a high watt standard flourescent? Because it's efficacy is better. Wattage is only a good indicator of power as long as you are comparing bulbs with the same efficacy (compacts to compacts, halides to halides, etc.) Where people get confused on wattage is comparing unlike bulbs (halides to flourescent, apples to oranges).

Plants thrive at higher intensities. Color temp has little to do with it in the ranges typically used in vivaria and aquaria.

So, if you want healthier, more colorful, more compact plants crank up the intensity!

Hopefully this clears a few things up and if I've totally confused you - sorry.

Donn

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Loss of foliage coloration or variagation with a swing back to green usually indicates that the plant is receiving less light than it had previously - and is producing more chlorophyll to remedy the loss of food production. If you can increase your light without cooking the viv then you'll see the color come back.

Remember that most plants are coming in from big producers that are grown in greenhouses which receive far more light than they are ever likely to receive in a vivarium with artificial lighting.

Dartz

Here is an accurate physiological explanation of what happened. The pink/red/purple coloration is the result of secondary pigments (chlorophyll being the primary plant pigment), namely anthocyanins. These pigments are used in the leaves of plants to prevent photoinhibition (where the amount of radiation striking the leaf exceeds its capacity to use the energy produced resulting in some disruption of the electron transport chain or bleaching of the chloroplast). The pink color left your plant because the amount of radiation it was receiving in the tank was not great enough to pose a risk of photoinhibition. While more chlorophyll was probably produced (or replaced, as the granna of shade leaves are structured differently from those of sun leaves) it is unlikely that this caused the change in coloration, as some one had suggested. Increase the intensity of light in the tank and color will return. But, how much you increase the intensity will determine how fast and how much of the color returns.