Newbie Questions (filter Light Plants)

[supermonkey]

I'm completely baffled by lighting.....

For a 100l tank, 2 x T8 lamps the length of the tank will give you enough light to grow any plant you wish. It is that simple. Buy tubes that look good to your eye, and forget all this expensive plant specific lamp stuff. Lampspecs is a great place to start for cheap lamps. Lamps with a colour rendering index (CRI) of 9 are perfect for giving true colours to the eye. You will see this number in the specification of the lamp on Lampspecs.

Then you need to consider carbon supplement. My guess, and it is a guess, is that you will need some form. I always use pressurised CO2, as there is barely a case where pressurised is not superior to liquid carbon, other than cost. In your case, I suspect you want to keep it simple. Buy a liquid carbon source such as Flourish Excel or EasyCarbo and dose as per the bottle.

For all other nutrient requirements, buy a bottle of Tropica TPN+ and dose as per the bottle. You don`t even need a nutrient rich substrate.

Check list to start a successful planted tank:

2 x T8 lamps the length of the tank, on a timer for around 8 hours.

Flourish Excel or easyCarbo.

TPN+

Planted tanks can be that easy. The hardest part by far is getting them to look nice.

Dave.

thanks for all that... very useful. just wanted to confirm that wilst i do want live plants, I'm not sure whether it would be classed as a planted tanks as most i see with this label are overflowing with greenery and my tank will be more sparse than that. Not sure if that makes much difference.

 

[waterdrop]

I don't think it makes a difference. I think Dave's recommendations would still be excellent for a tank that's not fully planted. Of course, having more plants is really beautiful and you may find yourself wanting more if they are doing well!

Dave is one of several knowledgeable and experienced members from over in the planted section who are gracious enough to come over and give us tips when we ask our plant questions here in the beginners section. For my part its really apprecieated! (and that post with the new simple approach is going to get him hired away by all the marketing firms I think... )

~~waterdrop~~

 

[supermonkey]

hi everyone, have been thing all this through again and have decided that I would like to keep it to one light positioned centrally above the aquarium. So if I get one light with a higher wattage will this give a similar effect to having 2 with lower wattage? This would really help with my budget.

Am thinking of the tube below as it's a T5 (more efficient!?) but I note there are no CRI values on most of the lights on there. I also couldn't find much on lampspecs for the controller unit, is the 2nd unit all I would need?

[URL="http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Bulbs-Tub...ylvania-39-Watt"]http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Bulbs-Tub...ylvania-39-Watt[/URL]
[URL="http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Fittings/...Ballast-Philips"]http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Fittings/...Ballast-Philips[/URL]

Thanks

 

[supermonkey]

hi everyone, have been thing all this through again and have decided that I would like to keep it to one light positioned centrally above the aquarium. So if I get one light with a higher wattage will this give a similar effect to having 2 with lower wattage? This would really help with my budget.

Am thinking of the tube below as it's a T5 (more efficient!?) but I note there are no CRI values on most of the lights on there. I also couldn't find much on lampspecs for the controller unit, is the 2nd unit all I would need?

<a href="http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Bulbs-Tub...ylvania-39-Watt" target="_blank">http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Bulbs-Tub...ylvania-39-Watt</a>
<a href="http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Fittings/...Ballast-Philips" target="_blank">http/www.lampspecs.co.uk/Light-Fittings/...Ballast-Philips</a>

Thanks

hi everyone, sorry for the bump - just still unsure on lighting!

 

[OldMan47]

The answer to your question is very simple Supermonkey. T-8 bulbs only come in one rating, they are all 8 watts per foot of bulb. A T-12 is always 10 watts per foot. I am not sure what the comparable value is for T-5 but it is equally uniform. That means that you don't really have the option of getting a higher wattage single bulb instead of 2 bulbs. You might get away with a T-5 HO which pushes more power than a T-5 but again is a fixed amount for each bulb length. If you decide that a single standard bulb of a given length is too small, there is no option to choose a bulb of higher wattage, you need to change bulb and fixture types to the expensive high output bulbs or go with more bulbs. I wiush there were a diffrerent answer but there isn't. Dave's recommendation to go with a multiple bulb arrangement of T-8 is probably the best compromise you will find between cost and light intensity.