Hi guys, I'm about to start a low maintenance ( at present ) planted tank. Truth be told, it will hopefully turn into a high maintenance project but my dad's putting the money in and I'm on a budget of about £100. So for now plan is.
60 gallon tank its 4ft x 18" x 18"
Layer of top soil mixed with substrate ferts and a layer of fine gravel
Going to be treating with TPN+ and Easy Carbo
Filtration is a fluval 304 and a fluval 4+( which I can hopefully remove if all is well)
Heating Hydor 300 although it will be an internal initially until I get everything moved around.
Initially I'll be planting with a large plant collection from plantsalive.co.uk, and then probably paying for more expensive Tropica plants, this means I get a lot of plants, and fast growing ones in initially and work out what will do well and what won't.
My plan will be eventually to get pressurised CO2 into it and further upgrade the lighting.
But apart from a general, I'm on the right path, even though is a rocky one would be great from you guys.
I'd like to ask about lighting.At the minute it has one 30W T8 in there. General plan was to order a double T8 40W starter unit, and fit 3 regular household 30W 6500K tubes. I know that these will be slightly overpowered but from experience that won't be a problem. In the future it means two of the bulbs can be upgraded to proper aquatic 40W ones, for slightly more light and better colours. You understand the initial setup price is to be kept low but with the potential to upgrade easily over time. So about 90W over 60 gallons.
The hood is a good shape, if it ever came to the point where I need to further double the lighting, there's the capacity.
But the only other affordable option is a double 39W T5 starter, now this is a bit more pricey, and on the surface apart from the smaller size (which is unimportant) is a worse deal than the T8s. What I'd like to know is if 30W from a T8 = 30W from a T5, or if there is a great deal more benefit going for the T5s.
And in general do you think I'm going for the right amount of light given the rest of my set-up?
Thanks, Darren
60 gallon tank its 4ft x 18" x 18"
Layer of top soil mixed with substrate ferts and a layer of fine gravel
Going to be treating with TPN+ and Easy Carbo
Filtration is a fluval 304 and a fluval 4+( which I can hopefully remove if all is well)
Heating Hydor 300 although it will be an internal initially until I get everything moved around.
Initially I'll be planting with a large plant collection from plantsalive.co.uk, and then probably paying for more expensive Tropica plants, this means I get a lot of plants, and fast growing ones in initially and work out what will do well and what won't.
My plan will be eventually to get pressurised CO2 into it and further upgrade the lighting.
But apart from a general, I'm on the right path, even though is a rocky one would be great from you guys.
I'd like to ask about lighting.At the minute it has one 30W T8 in there. General plan was to order a double T8 40W starter unit, and fit 3 regular household 30W 6500K tubes. I know that these will be slightly overpowered but from experience that won't be a problem. In the future it means two of the bulbs can be upgraded to proper aquatic 40W ones, for slightly more light and better colours. You understand the initial setup price is to be kept low but with the potential to upgrade easily over time. So about 90W over 60 gallons.
The hood is a good shape, if it ever came to the point where I need to further double the lighting, there's the capacity.
But the only other affordable option is a double 39W T5 starter, now this is a bit more pricey, and on the surface apart from the smaller size (which is unimportant) is a worse deal than the T8s. What I'd like to know is if 30W from a T8 = 30W from a T5, or if there is a great deal more benefit going for the T5s.
And in general do you think I'm going for the right amount of light given the rest of my set-up?
Thanks, Darren
/www.lampspecs.co.uk/
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