Will a SlimPaq 460nm Actinic bulb and 10000°K t5 ho bulbs support plant growth in a Terrarium?

Question

I ask this because these are the lights that come in a coral reef lighting system i want, and im worried it is not going to fully support plant growth for normal plants.

Answer 1

Be careful about the heat generation from these lamps!  There are other less expensive lamps that may do the job just as well.  Selection of plants that don't need as much light would help as well.

Answer 2

Those lights wouldn't be as good as ones made for growing plants.  The number before the "K" is what's called Kelvin temperature, and is a way of describing how color changes between objects of extremely different temperatures.  For instance, our sun has a Kelvin temperature of 5600K (light blue), but a light bulb (incandescent) has a value of 2,700K (yellow).  That why if you ever used a film camera indoors, the end photo probably looked yellow - the film is set so the white looks "white" in the light from the sun - under incandescent bulbs, everything shifts toward yellow, but under indoor fluorescent lighting, they'll look blue-green.

Why's that important?  Well, remember that plants need light in certain wavelengths for photosynthesis.  In the ocean, more red light is absorbed by the water before it gets to the corals, so the 10,000K lights you have will be very blue - land plants use both red and blue.  A plant light for your system should only have a K rating of about 6000K.  Maybe you could check with a pet store that sells your lighting fixture (or a good lighting supply store) and see if there's a 6000K that would be able to work in your system.  Maybe a pet store might even take your 10,000K bulbs in trade for someone else's tank.