Is Our Lighting Okay?

[Ninjouzata]

We're wondering if our lighting is good enough to have plants.
The tank is 55 gallons, 48 inches long and 18 inches high.
There are two..hood thingies

  each with one long bulb tubey in it. We took them out and they each say T8 15W.
A specific plant I'm interested in keeping is Corkscrew Val, would it be ok with this? Or are any plants we put in here going to die?

Thank you for your help!

Oops..forgot to say the substrate is Flora Max

 

[Chris0422]

That is really low lighting. OK think too low for the val. I have the same size 55. A good number is 2 watts of lighting per gallon for plants when using T8 bulbs.(not a 100% rule but a good starting point) You may be able to get some plants to grow if they are low light but it will most likely be slow growth. Over my tank I have 96 watts from T5 high output lights. Check out the planted section tons of info.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

I'd stick with things like java fern, anubias and amazon swords (maybe some cryptocoryne species as well) with that lighting.  The growth will be slow, but slow growth is still good.

 

[Ninjouzata]

Well we need to get new bulbs anyway..I just don't know where any better T8 bulbs are that will fit ^^'

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Try a hardware store.  They sell "plant" specific bulbs.  Just make sure the fixture can handle a higher wattage bulb, or consider scrapping the entire fixture and upgrading.

 

[Ninjouzata]

Yeah we were at Home Depot today and were looking at some but didn't want to purchase anything without being 100% on what we have so had to come home and check. We need to get new hoods anyway I think as they make a loud buzzing noise and when the lights come on they flicker but the other ones are just so expensive..so I guess we will just get a new one of the same we have and hopefully find some better bulbs

Thank you for the responses so far by the way!