Hey all,
Ive posted about having 'plant problems' before, and invested in some more lighting but it still doesn't seem to be enough. I was recently at my local LFS and they had a 90gal running with 450+ watts. Currently my tank is running about 2 watts per gallon, and I'd like to amp up the wpg's. Ive got a 50gal bowfront, and am looking for suggestions on what sorts of lighting I should get.
Right now Im using a Perfecto Dual lamp running 30 watts (Hardware store bulbs), and a Hagen T5 HO lamp with dual 80 watts Power Glo bulbs; which isnt enough, so I've moved all of my plants into a temporary tank with sufficient lighting. The plants were experiencing stunted growth and dying off, even with liquid fertilizer, and plant food.
I hope to get up to about 4 wpg, and would like to know what fixtures + bulbs you would suggest.
I was thinking about a lamp such as this:
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_viewitem.aspx?idproduct=CU01015
As well as a small dual-strip T5 to compensate for the lunar lights in the fixture. Would the Actinic in the fixture harm my freshwater fish? I like the idea of the included lunar light, that way I could get rid of the little LED's I have in my tank.
I am not a planted tank expert so I cannot help you out with specific brands and such, but in terms of your actinic question - many people have had severe algae problems when putting actinic bulbs in their freshwater aquariums. It generally is not recommended for this reason. Up to you though - if you do choose to go with it and see a major algae bloom, consider the actinic your first problem to check.
See if you can find a comparable light without actinic or any other blue color. I bought a light similar to this with the blue and wish I had taken the time to get all plant growing bulbs, which for some reason seem to be harder to find in a power compact or VHO package. Stores will say they work for FW aquariums, but that's inaccurate. Like Miami said these are a waste of a bulb and potential light. I like the fixture and the moon lights, but you can find better. If I had the money I would buy the one below that in on two legs, the Orbit. I hear they're really good. PS I've been looking at the lights and it seems they are all for saltwater coral tanks. I've been told that it's easy to over do the light needed for a freshwater planted tank, so keep that in mind. I don't know why they don't have light configurations for planted tanks. Try user Nobobo. He has a fabulous tank and he probably has the answers.
OK guys thanks for the info on the actinic and such. I didnt even realize it was a 'Marine Depot', my bad... kinda wondered why I couldn't find anything without actinic... Thats what you get for google-searchin haha
Ill see if I can find some freshwater fixtures and hear what Nobobo has to say!
Sorry for the double post, but might it be better to stick with a quad T5 fixture? Because, if there was a fixture like the one I linked to, but with T5 FW bulbs, instead of the actinic, and PowerCompact, that would be perfect I think. That would be about 160 watts, and I could get a small dual T5 strip as well.
My Tank is 21" deep, and I've got a bunch of low-lying plants that would need light just above the substrate. I'm not really sure about the whole PowerCompact thing, and I think Peter is right; I may be overdoing it. Is PowerCompact usually limited to SW tanks?
my lfs would give me any bulb combination i wanted with the purchase of a fixture. as long as you use the right k rating of bulb i think it would be ok.what is the spectrum of bulb for planted tanks?
Yea! If you can find a good aquarium store they may switch out the bulbs as SWP said That's probably what I'd do. I wish I knew more about lights. I went on www.plantgeek.com and read about their light ratings and it's VERY confusing. I like the little halides that are on an arm that attaches to the back of the tank and I've seen them in use in stores. They give lots of light and also give the mottled light as it gets a cool effect as it goes through the surface of the water. I also like the halide and fluorescent combos with moon lights as well, but the cost is high. I like the price of the first light you have listed, and I don't know if those lights would be needed with the second, which would probably be plenty in itself. I've been told that too much light will just give you algae nightmares. I'd be very interested in what Nobobo has to say for us with planted tanks. If he could give a sort of list of good lights for planted tanks from lower light requiring tanks to high requiring I would learn a lot. PS I used to and still use flourescent fixtures from the hardware store to grow low-light requiring plants. I've used on a 60 gallon 4 4 foot fourescent 40 watt bulbs and this works well, and I also have a couple VHO fixtures with the combined blue and white bulbs in other tanks. They're great and I've had mixed success with them. I'm using UG filters with my planted tanks and I'm learning that this increases the nutrients in the water causing more algae to grow, so I don't know if my algae problems are because of the light or the UGF. I will replace the blue bulbs with the daylight, or plant bulbs, though. I'm setting up a new planted tank and I'm leaning toward not using an UGF now, though I thought I had a good idea about using fine screen over the filter plates to work with fine plant growing substraight.
I may be wrong, but isn't it around 8500k? Pulling from blue and red spectrums.
If anyone could answer my questions, or comment in my above post that would be diggity. Hopefully Nobobo sees my post; I saw his website, and he has some nice planted tanks.
I did some reading and the people said that power compacts were better than VHO's in terms of efficiency. I have a PC fixture I found in the garbage of an aquarium store( 2 double 95 watt bulbs) and it looks nice but the bulbs were old so I need to replace them before I really can judge them.
I copied this from a website concerning the value 'k" as seen on most bulbs:
"K", refers to the color temperature of the light measured in oKelvin. A lower Kelvin rating indicates a warmer light source whose spectrum is more towards the yellow end. A higher Kelvin rating indicates a cooler source of lighting that emphasizes the blue end of the spectrum"
Basically the higher the oKelvin the more intense the light, and less the K the lesser intense, etc.
Ya plant websites are so confusing and sometimes contradicting. Unfortunately, when I bought my Hagen T5 HO fixture 2x39W, the LFS said it would be enough, but it most definitely isn't. I'm barely putting out 2 wpg. And my tank is deeper than 19" which also causes problems even for low-light plants. I cant even get java moss or fern to grow; which is pretty pitiful haha.
I do know a few good LFS in my area that might actually switch around bulbs for me, ill have to check up on it though.
I think what I'll do (depending on what Nobobo has to say) is purchase the 4x39W fixture in a couple of weeks, and do a test run to see if it's enough light. If it isn't Ill purchase the smaller T5 strip light as well, it's small and compact and would sit nicely behind the actual fixture. I hope the fan on the fixture isn't too noisy.
The part about CO2 came as a shock to me. Is it true that as you add more light to a tank you also have to increase the CO2 of that tank? I've been trying to avoid CO2 (it's damn expensive), but it seems that with my new fixture I will also need to compensate with CO2, and it's unavoidable?
As far as I know Nobobo doesen't use CO2. I have a 65 watt X4 bulb fixture with three fans that looks like the second light you have a link to and they're really noisy when I turn them on. They get quieter after the light heats up, but they're still loud. I have a pretty high tollerance to noise and it would probably bother most people. I found a nice cooling fan in the garbage that is powerfull and silent and I use it to cool my lights as I have hidden them under a heavy cloth on top of my tank. PS Great link SWP! If anyone wants to forum with true planted tank enthusiasts join the www.plantgeek.com forum. These guys are really advanced and way over my head.
