People With 10 Gallon Planted Tanks

[Valyrian]

Can you say how many watts you have, what plants are growing, and possibly a picture of ur light fixture?
I want to make my 10 gallon a planted tank but I'm having trouble finding a light fixture for it that will hold more than one 15 watt bulb.

 

[Misskiwi67]

I have a 15 watt bulb, and I have no idea what plants I have.... here's a pic. I looked at upgrading to better lighting, and the only bulbs I could find that weren't too wide were 40 watt compact fluorescents.

 

[soritan]

I have 4wpg, 6500k lights, with anacharis, hornwort, green wendtii and red wendtii, marimo balls, and java fern. I don't use a special hood, it's just a standard incandescent hood, fitted with two 20 watt compact florescent light bulbs, 'daylight' variety -- my problem, though, is that it heats up the water quite a bit.

Anacharis and Hornwort grow like something's chasing them. My crypts are new, so I'm waiting for them to settle in yet. Marimo balls are sort of like algae in tribble form, I like them. My java fern is so tiny right now, that you can't really see that it's there. I'll be adding java moss, next, but I haven't figured where yet.

I'm thinking of adding some anubis nana, petite, as a foreground.

At the moment, my tank is ugly ugly ugly, but I'm working on that. I started out with just one stem of anacharis and one stem of hornwort, and now I almost have enough to be considered 'heavily planted'.

 

[Valyrian]

Where did you find those 20W bulbs and how did you fit 2 of them into a standard hood? That's basically my problem right now. I can only find 15W bulbs that will fit my hood and I don't know how to add more bulbs to the hood.

 

[soritan]

I just got them at my local grocery store. Compact Florescent bulbs are designed to replace incandescent lights. Look for bulbs marked "daylight" for 6500k. My incandescent hood can handle two 25 watt bulbs, but the compact florescents are too fat to fit when I use them, so I only use 20 watt bulbs.

Is your hood 2 pieces, or one solid piece?

 

[lljdma06]

If you get a glass cover, you can fit another standard 15W strip on the tank. Of course, you have to remove it for feeding, but that isn't a big hassle for me anyways.

I grow elodea, hygro. deformis, lots of hygro. polysperma, limnophila sessiflora, crypt. wendtii, crypt. lutea, and a partridge in a, no, and some Echinodorus tenellus.

I use it primarily as a grow out tanks for plants I want in my 15g, but it also houses 3 CT bettas.

 

[Valyrian]

I hav the All-Glass deluxe full hood, 20". It's one piece, unless you count the lid as a seperate piece.

 

[lljdma06]

I hav the All-Glass deluxe full hood, 20". It's one piece, unless you count the lid as a seperate piece.

Is it all glass, or mostly plastic with a glass strip? My cover is all glass, so two fixtures fit easily on top of it and all the light goes through.

 

[Valyrian]

All-Glass Aquariums is the name of the company that makes the hood.

 

[soritan]

Yeah, they make many types of hoods.

All-glass made my hood as well, and mine is almost 100% plastic. It's a real pain in the ass to keep together, the flippy part of the hood is broken off and it gasses off lightly under the heat.

 

[Valyrian]

I went to petsmart today and exchanged the hood that I ordered online for the 20" Perfect a Lite fluorescent hood from marineland. It's 2 pieces, the lightstrip and the rest of the hood.

It can only fit 1 15 watt tube. Is there any way to modify the lightstrip to fit more in?

Also, is there such thing as a 40W 18" fluorescent tube? I've seen some people list it as their lighting in their tank specifications but I haven't found one anywhere.

 

[lljdma06]

I hav the All-Glass deluxe full hood, 20". It's one piece, unless you count the lid as a seperate piece.

Is it all glass, or mostly plastic with a glass strip? My cover is all glass, so two fixtures fit easily on top of it and all the light goes through.

I'm just not phrasing this right and I apologize. I have glass cover. Not made by All-Glass, but comprised of all glass. With that type of cover, I can easily fit two standard strip lights for a 10 gallon. I apologize for misleading you. Sorry if my words made you buy something that is not working for you.

 

[delryn]

I have a 10g tank running 3 13watt (2 pin) power compacts - with a home made hood
cost me less to make the hood than to replace the bulbs

anyway plant list:
crypto parva
crypto wendtii
marimo ball
java fern
xmass moss
amazon sword (too tall for the tank, sorry don't know the proper name)
rotalia ? (attractive red plant)

Delryn