For those of you who are beginners you might feel like you can buy an aquarium and stick any sort of bulb into it and hence you will have aquarium lighting.
But then there's more to it than meets the eye.
When you get the aquarium light, make sure that you do not focus solely on the price or the amount of discounts offered.
The different tanks need different lighting, for example a freshwater aquarium will need fresh water aquarium lighting and so on.
You can ask fish keepers who are experienced for help when it comes to the lighting.
Lighting is a vital part of the aquarium.
This is because the plants in your aquarium will depend on the lighting.
A wrong choice of lighting might just stop the growth of the plants and might lead to algae formation.
You need to provide around 13 hours of lighting to the fish a day.
When you choose the aquarium lighting you need to keep the brightness of the required light and the color spectrum in mind.
If you have plants in your aquarium then you should go for the blue or red spectrum.
But if you have only fish in it then you could go for the yellow one.
Then when you choose the brightness, it is going to be a bit difficult.
You have to know the exact depth and the width of your aquarium in order to get the brightness correct.
If you have a really deep tank then you will need a very strong brightness.
You can also use a luxmeter to measure the intensity of light which is required.
If you have the wrong brightness then algae will start growing, so brightness is an important part of aquarium lighting.
If you want something which is economical you can use the metal halide aquarium lighting which gives you maximum power at a lower power usage.
It doesn't even give out a lot of heat hence the fish in the tank aren't very effected.
You can also use the t5 aquarium lighting instead of the metal halide lighting to give the aquarium a different look and to help your plants thrive.
If you have a large aquarium then you can try and use underwater aquarium lighting or even LED aquarium lighting.
But make sure that these aren't added to tanks which are small and also shallow.
When you want to add t5 lighting to the aquarium make sure that you know how much money you will have to invest in it.
It wont be very cheap for you and you will also have to switch it on as well as off twice everyday.