Lighting For Planted Tanks

[Tropical_Dave]

so im wondering what the best kind of lighting i should get for my planted tank which i should hopefully be setting up in 2 weeks or so.
should i go for the regular kind of lights, is t5 or t8 best? what wattage works better? or maybe L.E.D's are best?
all help is much appreciated

 

[majerah1]

T5 High Output is better than T8. It all really depends on what kind of tank you want. Light drives the needs of plants and if you go high light you will need to add nutrients and CO2 as well. Some LEDs on the market are as good as the T5s but they are quite pricey. 

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

Also, dont be afraid to spend money on these. I am spending about $80 on mine and my tank is only 15 gallons. Lighting and if you choose to do co2, will be the most expensive part of the tank except tank and stand itself.

 

[dave840f1]

Also, dont be afraid to spend money on these. I am spending about $80 on mine and my tank is only 15 gallons. Lighting and if you choose to do co2, will be the most expensive part of the tank except tank and stand itself.

Not quite true about the CO2 being the most expensive piece of equipment if you do a DIY system. I've had mine running for a few years with no problems and No expensive outlay. Regards the lighting I have a mix of T8s and LEDs and the plants do very well and the colours of the fish shine. If you go with T5s they run quite hot allow for this with the temp. of the water.

 

[Tropical_Dave]

thanks for all the advice guys
ive already got a co2 thingy (not sure what its actually called lol) to help the plants, im thinking im going to go with some t5 lighting, i saw an overhead unit i wanted which had 2 regular white t5's and 1 blue t5 in the middle which was on a seperate switch so you could have either just normal light, just blue light or a combo of the 2, then i realized there wasnt one to fit my tank lol
so im repairing the origional lid for the tank and will probably buy a new ballast and a couple of t5 ho bulbs, maybe 1 white and 1 blue.
 
any suggestions on actual bulbs? wattage and colour for example?

oh and i forgot to mention i always have a thermometer in the water for monitering the temp, also im going to get 1 of the fluval e series heaters which has a colour changing digital display on it which is pretty cool

 

[rms]

I would just go for two t5ho's at 6,500k. Don't bother with blue light. Also don't listen to LFS's who tell you you need to buy expensive, plant growing tubes. Regular tubes from hardware shops work exactly the same. IMO 6,500k is pretty much all you need as long as you are starting out with easy to medium plants. Others will disagree, but you will get photosynthesis, no question about it.
 
The other things you need to research are fertilisers and co2. Just having a co2 thingy is not really enough. I should know, I managed to wipe out 90% of my tank for not researching co2 properly and poisoning my fish with a massive PH/kH swing. Something I didn't come across until it was too late was the effects of a 50% water change when your tank kH is much lower than your tap water kH. I could go on and on, and believe me, the only reason I know all this is because of mistakes.
 
My advice, from basically a very small amount of experience, don't fire up your co2 thingy until you're confident. Go with easy plants and use Flourish Excel with a couple 6,500k tubes. Spend a few months reading, asking and learning. Take it from there.

 

[Tropical_Dave]

I would just go for two t5ho's at 6,500k. Don't bother with blue light. Also don't listen to LFS's who tell you you need to buy expensive, plant growing tubes. Regular tubes from hardware shops work exactly the same. IMO 6,500k is pretty much all you need as long as you are starting out with easy to medium plants. Others will disagree, but you will get photosynthesis, no question about it.
 
The other things you need to research are fertilisers and co2. Just having a co2 thingy is not really enough. I should know, I managed to wipe out 90% of my tank for not researching co2 properly and poisoning my fish with a massive PH/kH swing. Something I didn't come across until it was too late was the effects of a 50% water change when your tank kH is much lower than your tap water kH. I could go on and on, and believe me, the only reason I know all this is because of mistakes.
 
My advice, from basically a very small amount of experience, don't fire up your co2 thingy until you're confident. Go with easy plants and use Flourish Excel with a couple 6,500k tubes. Spend a few months reading, asking and learning. Take it from there.

 cheers for the advice so i wanted to put some dwarf hair grass in and hopefully get a nice looking carpet going, the only other thing i wanted to grow was hemianthus micranthemoides, don't know if its got a more common name, saw it in a video on youtube and thought it looked really nice lol would you say these are easy to grow? and is the co2 (thingy lol) not as important as i thought for plants? i was a little concerned how it would affect my fish but was going to fire it all up and cycle the tank and check it before adding any fish. as far as fertilising goes... ive got some jbl aqaubasis and sansibar for the substrate, was going to get some form of additive but im still in the process of researching that. any recomendations?

 

[rms]

I would say cycle your tank before doing anything else. Better to go one step at a time in case there are complications. What method will you be using to cycle?

I'm not familiar with the plant you've asked about. Not tried it before so can't offer an informed opinion.

 

[tunagirll]

I started with a low tech setup - easy to grow ferns and anubias, liquid CO2 and limited light. That's a good place to start before your go high tech - once you have strong light and CO2 things can snowball and go wrong very quickly.

 

[majerah1]

thanks for all the advice guys

ive already got a co2 thingy (not sure what its actually called lol) to help the plants, im thinking im going to go with some t5 lighting, i saw an overhead unit i wanted which had 2 regular white t5's and 1 blue t5 in the middle which was on a seperate switch so you could have either just normal light, just blue light or a combo of the 2, then i realized there wasnt one to fit my tank lol
so im repairing the origional lid for the tank and will probably buy a new ballast and a couple of t5 ho bulbs, maybe 1 white and 1 blue.
 
any suggestions on actual bulbs? wattage and colour for example?

oh and i forgot to mention i always have a thermometer in the water for monitering the temp, also im going to get 1 of the fluval e series heaters which has a colour changing digital display on it which is pretty cool

Is the original fixture T5?If it is not, then you will not be able to use it with T5 bulbs, they are not interchangeable. 

 

[Tropical_Dave]

 

thanks for all the advice guys

ive already got a co2 thingy (not sure what its actually called lol) to help the plants, im thinking im going to go with some t5 lighting, i saw an overhead unit i wanted which had 2 regular white t5's and 1 blue t5 in the middle which was on a seperate switch so you could have either just normal light, just blue light or a combo of the 2, then i realized there wasnt one to fit my tank lol
so im repairing the origional lid for the tank and will probably buy a new ballast and a couple of t5 ho bulbs, maybe 1 white and 1 blue.
 
any suggestions on actual bulbs? wattage and colour for example?

oh and i forgot to mention i always have a thermometer in the water for monitering the temp, also im going to get 1 of the fluval e series heaters which has a colour changing digital display on it which is pretty cool

Is the original fixture T5?If it is not, then you will not be able to use it with T5 bulbs, they are not interchangeable. 
 

im replacing the whole lot, just starting with a plastic lid with no fixtures, fittings, or anything. i used to build custom motorbikes and harleys so im good at modifying and customising things.
 

I would say cycle your tank before doing anything else. Better to go one step at a time in case there are complications. What method will you be using to cycle?

I'm not familiar with the plant you've asked about. Not tried it before so can't offer an informed opinion.

im putting the inards of my filter in my other tank for a while to collect some bacteria for a start

 

[rms]

im putting the inards of my filter in my other tank for a while to collect some bacteria for a start
 

 
Good idea. Will speed things up a lot. Best and quickest to use ammonia instead of fish to finish the cycle off.
 
Curious to know what co2 system you'll be using? As mentioned before might be a good idea to hold back on it for a while though and use liquid co2. This won't meddle with your pH/KH levels so much safer. You'll get good success with t5ho's as long as you use easy, maybe some medium, plants, but even this takes time to get to grips with. Don't forget to look into ferts and your tank will need good circulation for plants.
 
Here's a good link for easy plants. Plenty to get going with
 
http/www.tropica.com/en/plants/difficulty/easy.aspx

 

[Alasse]

Is the original fixture T5?If it is not, then you will not be able to use it with T5 bulbs, they are not interchangeable.

Actually, here, we can get adapters that can allow T5 bulbs to go into a T8 fitting

 

[Tropical_Dave]

 

im putting the inards of my filter in my other tank for a while to collect some bacteria for a start
 

 
Good idea. Will speed things up a lot. Best and quickest to use ammonia instead of fish to finish the cycle off.
 
Curious to know what co2 system you'll be using? As mentioned before might be a good idea to hold back on it for a while though and use liquid co2. This won't meddle with your pH/KH levels so much safer. You'll get good success with t5ho's as long as you use easy, maybe some medium, plants, but even this takes time to get to grips with. Don't forget to look into ferts and your tank will need good circulation for plants.
 
Here's a good link for easy plants. Plenty to get going with

 
http/www.tropica.com/en/plants/difficulty/easy.aspx
 

ive got one of these http/www.arkpetsonline.co.uk/nutrafin-co2-natural-plant-system-p-992.html?gclid=CIu274axxrwCFSvHtAodG1oAVg

 

[majerah1]

Interesting, Alasse! Thats pretty useful, wish we could get them here as well.