Too Much Lighting....

[Dave Spencer]

On Thursday my Juwel Lido arrived along with two T5 54W lamps at 21" in length.
These took some serious shoe horning to fit in to the lid; I would recommend the next size down. Anyway, i intend to run this tank using the EI method championed by many on this site so I was wondering:

I have 2 x 54W T5 lamps with reflectors and the incumbent 2 x 15W Juwel lamps. Is this an excessive amount of light for a 120l tank? Will the fish be stressed? If not, can anybody recommend some nice plants that require high light levels?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I have just bought a 15kg bag of play sand from Argos for £2.49 to be used as substrate, which appears to be a bargain. Has any one else used this stuff, and does it require much flushing through before use?

 

[George Farmer]

I assume you mean twin 55w PC T5. Keep an eye on water temp using these.

You have around 4.5wpg. That is a lot of light and you will need to plant VERY HEAVILY with fast weeds from the start, keep CO2 at 30ppm and dose EI in order to keep algae away.

Plain sand will be fine if you are running a nutrient-rich water column (EI). JamesC's tank is an excellent example of this. You could add a substrate additive for improved growth.

As I mentioned you need to plant heavily. Some don't seem to understand this concept. Heavily means almost covering the substrate. Ideal plants for starting are listed in the pinned algae thread. Hygrophila polysperma, Egeria densa and Limnophila sessiflora are my favourites.

Did I mention you need to plant heavily, and keep up CO2 (and EI)!?

 

[themissingelf]

You could, of course, run the tank with just the T5's to start off with and, once the plants are established, turn on the T8's for some of the time.

 

[zig]

Lighting is probably too much, i have 2x55w over a 160 litre tank.

 

[Dave Spencer]

Thanks for the help. Just to put your mind at rest George, I will be using the EI method, I just hope I get the concept of heavily planted right. Furtunately, Hygrophilia Polysperma is a favourite plant of mine and will form the basis of my jungle. Having looked at some of the fantastic set ups on this site I think my best method is to concentrate on four or five different plants with one or two specimen plants.

I will probably follow Themissingelf`s advice and start off my new set up without all the lights until the plants become established.