Rate My Fish Tank

Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:46 am GMT   Reply      

is there such a thing...what if you have a 150w metal hallide bubls over a small 20g tank...or 100w of plant light bulbs over the same size tank 20g...willl it do damage or is ti better..for sure the electric bill will get worse...hahaha

Tue Oct 06, 2009 6:32 am GMT   Reply      

srsly... try it...

you will probably need a UV sterilizer to kill off all of the free floating algae you're going to get on your water... not to mention always be scrapeing the film algae off the glass...

Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:14 pm GMT   Reply      

I have a 110 watts over a 20 gallon and it's fine. I've seen halides over 20 gallons also at the aquarium store, and they had co2 as well in it.

I also have 260 watts over my 30 gallon and I rarely scrape the glass.

In my experience it's mainly nitrate and or other nutrient issues that cause algae to grow out of control.

Tue Oct 06, 2009 4:18 pm GMT   Reply      

I have 4 , 4 foot long 40 watt each hardware flourescents over my 100 gallon, which is 2 feet deep, and I'm growing many types of low-light plants as well as amazon sword, which is a low-medium light plant.

Oh. That's 160 watts at $2 a bulb from the hardware store over the 100 gallon.

One note. Don't use halides or high light flood lights, or anything other than the flourescents from the hardware store. The intense light from some of these can burn the eyes of your fish.

Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:28 am GMT   Reply      

lol... burn their eyes...? they're staring at the sun in the lakes and rivers all day...

Wed Oct 07, 2009 3:02 pm GMT   Reply      

Gumbii........,.I used some halogen lights from the hardware store once and my gars got these crescent shaped white burns on their eyes.

I'm not making this up. The halide lights made for aquariums are coated or something so that doesn't happen.

After I stopped using these lights the burns on their eyes eventually went away, thankfully.

I posted on this years ago......remember?

Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:55 am GMT   Reply      

Look around the planted tanks of people who have great set ups, co2, etc, and you often find 5 watts per gallon and no algae going berserk.

Gumbii is a cichlid breeder and knows a lot about cichlids, and now I guess coral and salt water set ups as well, but I don't think he has much experience growing plants. Cichlids eat plants, so but for a few really tough varieties, most cichlid tanks are devoid of real plants.

With high light plants such as grasses , microsword, baby tears, (which are great as forground plants, you need a LOT of light.

Algae grows when ther are an excess of nutrients in the water. I had brush algae get under control by reducing nitrates to around 10. I had gotten lazy and I'd let the nitrates go up to 40, and then the brush algae grew all over the leaves.

High light plants also need to have specific nutrients (ferts) which if not used correctly can cause algae outbreaks.

Go for the halide( the clip-on-the-back type are awsome) on the 20 gallon and you'll have a beautiful tank, even if you don't use co2. The quality of the ripples on the bottom and leaves of the plants are amazing, and you shouldn't have problems with 5 or even more watts per gallon.