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Marine aquarium lighting is essential for your fish tank because it is used to simulate day and night. This allows the fish and invertebrates to establish a routine, take a rest and feel better.
Various light sources include natural sunlight, fluorescent, VHO (very high output) fluorescent, T-5 fluorescent, compact fluorescent, LED and metal halide. They all vary in cost, efficiency and longevity. Let us take a closer look at each kind of marine aquarium lighting.
This is the simplest type of lighting source. However, this is only applicable for areas where there is much sun. In other places like those countries which are far from the equator, using natural sunlight may not be applicable.
This kind of lighting which makes use of incandescent lamps has been phased out. Incandescent lamps waste a lot of energy, thus burns out frequently.
This kind of marine aquarium lighting makes use of fluorescent lighting tubes that you can find in commercial ceilings.Standard fluorescent tubes are more suitable for marine aquariums than incandescent bulbs.
They also provide efficient lighting. However, standard fluorescent lights can not penetrate in deeper and larger aquariums.
There are three kinds of high output fluorescent technology.
Metal Halide lights produce about 90-100 lumens per watt of power, making it more expensive than fluorescent systems. However, there is a reason for the difference in price. Metal halide lighting allows point source lighting which gives light concentration output on one part of an aquarium which makes metal halide light penetrate to the bottom level of the aquarium, giving a rippling visual effect.
If you are unsure if what kind of lighting is best for your marine aquarium, click this link below to find the right lighting system that Ebay.com recommends.