lighting upgrade

[Loveless]

I have a stock florecent light when I bought the 20 gallon tank... I know it's a 15w tube but all it says is marineland eclipse and nothing else is useful.

I'd like some healthy plants... is this product a positive upgrade or am I wasting my money? I don't really know all the names of my plants but I know my amazon swords aren't growing.

 

[oazanki]

Hey Loveless,

Changing the bulb in your hood will have a very little or no impact at all on your plant growth. you will still be using the same Watts per Gallon in each case which is 15/20=0.75WPG... A good WPG would be in the range of 2.5-3, which will allow you to grow almost all plants..

If you don't want to retrofit your light setup, you could be able to grow certain low light demanding plants.. the plants will survive and you might see some growth on the long run. A tank with such a low light will hardly need any fertelizers and you will need no CO2.

The Amazon Sword will not live at such a low light..

 

[Lateral Line]

Adding that tube in addition to what you have may help, but as the previous poster has commented, you have way to little light in the tank as it is. I don't use these fancy spectrum tubes, but full spectrum tubes.

 

[Loveless]

my tank is 2 inch wide so I bought a 24 inch tube tube yesterday only to find that it does not fit properly.

I went to hagen's website and found that all 18 inch bulbs are 15w. Can you tell me what brand have what I need? And if I replaced the bulb according to that suggestion, will it scare my fishes since the bulbg is too powerful? So there is a rule of the thumb for lighting.... 2.5~3 watt per gallon... well how about kelvin (spell check? I meant the color rating of the bulb)? doestn't it mean anything?

 

[Magnus]

The K (Kelvin) rating indicates what light color the bulb is producing. It doesn't have anything to do with the spectrums that plants prefer. When buying light bulb, look for K rating of 5000K-10000K (gives a more natural look to your tank), and full-spectrum bulb. I suggest you check out Home Depot, last time I checked, they had T8 15Watts, 5000K full-spectrum bulb with a much cheaper price than LFS.
As for your tank, I would suggest getting AT LEAST 30W. Don't worry, the fish will be fine.

 

[oazanki]

The fish don't really care about what kind of bulb you use.. the Aqua glo bulb you were looking at has an 18000K, they are good for plants..

I personally have a mix of Aqua glo, power glo and 2 GE aqua rays (9325K) on my 30 Gal tank..

Its good to have bulbs that have peaks on the blue and red parts of the spectrum (just like the Hagen tube) as these two colors are most absorbed by plants..

Check this link : 30 Gal planted tank with 20 Watt bulb

I think you could be fine with just 1 Hagen tube as long as you choose the right plants

 

[Bol]

Loveless, you have an Eclipse tank? (Is the top, filter, and light all in one piece?)