New Lighting!

[brads]

Right, I got my new tubes today for my tank. I took out the three month old standard tubes that the tank came with. they were x2 25watt tubes. alot of people have said to me buy some nicer lighting, so i went to LFS to find out whats what. They suggested x1 power-glo and x1 aqua-glo. so I went ahead and spent my cash.
Even though they are the same watt tubes they don't give out the same amount of light as the standerd tubes. I don't think they look any better than them either. they cost me £25 so i'm a bit disapointed. Also when I told them that I keep my lights on 8am till 10am and 4pm till 11pm a total of nine hours a day they said it should be a minnium of 12hours.
I'm so confused as what to do. My plants are growing ok but now i'm not sure whats going to happen with this new lighting. I have been getting a bit of bright green algae on the glass at the back of the tank and some brown on some of the leaves of my plants, so should I be increaseing the amount of light? I would have thought reduceing it! But now the new tubes are not as bright as the old ones so i'm clueless as what to do please help.

Happy new year Brads

 

[SuperColey1]

I bought one replacement lamp last week - Arcadia Original Tropical Lamp. Absolutely awesome. bright and the fish colours are now amazing.

The tank originally came with 1 x SunGlo and 1 x AquaGlo. (The SunGlo was replaced.)

I have been told on this forum that I should put a Arcadia Freshwater Lamp in the other side as this mix is good with plants.

These lamps are both great. top brand (Mine are 18W 24") and are only £7.50-tropical & £10.99-Freshwater in P@H, probs cheaper elsewhere.

(I do have arcadia reflectors above them, which are only about £4-£5 each)

So for my 2 lamps with reflectors would be £26.50 same as yours but they are well worth the money. I don't really rate the SunGlo and AquaGlo that were already in there. The tank looked so dull.