Unsure On Lighting ... Is It Enough?

[MrJerry]

Hi fellow fish fanatics
 
ive caught the planted/aquascaping bug and gone and bought a bunch of different types of aquatic plants from plants alive(101 different plants).
know ive had 3/4 plants in the aquarium for about 2 months know and are not looking very healthy and i have no idea why ?
so i went out and bought the liquid fertilizers and liquid CO to hopefully get them going and to hopefully clarify to myself that it was only because there wasent enough nutrients but still not looking good
so my next point of call was maybe not enough lighting for the plants..... i have a 3 foot x1 x1 tank and i currently have a t8 24" bulb that i have freshly replaced .... is this still not enough ??
should i maybe jump up to a t5 system .... and maybe have 2 bulbs ??
 
any help will be greatly appreciated 
 
any more info needed just let me know

 

[attibones]

What is the wattage of your current bulb?

 

[jwalser18]

also, what kalvin rating is the lightbulb? 

 

[levahe]

That will be a 17w bulb I recon. I can't see why it wouldn't be enought light for a 1ft deep tank by 1ft wide.

Which fertiliser/liquod co2 do you have and how much/often do you use it and how long have you been using it?
Do you have a decent amount of flow in your tank? The recommended amount of flow is 10x the volume of your tank. 100l tank would need 1000lph flow rate.
Do you do regular decent sized waterchanges?
Pics of plants?

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Most plants will actually adapt to almost any light conditions, you're just going to get much slower growth. There are some, more difficult plants which do prefer higher light. What plants are in your tank?
 
10x turnover isn't really needed, although it is true that some high tech tanks do have it. Anything from maybe 6-7x turnover will do you fine. The important thing is the actual movement of water around the tank, you need to have movement in all areas of the tank.
 
How long are your lights on for? Do you have a timer?

 

[MrJerry]

sorry about the slow reply ......
right ive got a 24inch t8 light 20w - its the glo power glow - 18000k
as to the plant i have no idea .... locally bought fish shop ... plus back then i had no idea wat i was doing haha
will have to upload some photos of them 
i have a external filter that was about double the filtration of the tank bacuse i wanted to over clean the tank if you get the jist
i also have a mini circulation pump just enough power to get some circulation around the tank 
as for nutrients - flora-grow carbo  and flora-grow liquid and i put enough pumps as the bottle says but didn't do it every day like the bottle says as i would go through a bottle every other day other wise cost a fortune ...
any others that are any good ? been looking at getting gravel tabs also to boost the plants along ..... they any good ?
i do about 20/30 litres a week plus gravel clean at the same time 
lights used to be on all day untill i started getting green and black hair algee .... then bought treatment and it removed it all .... then keep it down to a max of about 8/10 hours a day 
any more info needed guy just let me know 
thanks for all the responses

 

[levahe]

Not familiar with that brand, but a 500ml bottle of easycarbo and a 300ml bottle of tropica plant growth specialised would last you 1/2 a year or so.
If you are adding liquid co2 you its important to add the correct amount of fertilisers or the plants will suffer.
A mistake a lot of people make is add more light if their plants arent doing well when its nutrients/co2 thats the problem! If you did want to eventually add a brighter light the best way to do it is to make sure your plants are super healthy first, then they will cope when you hit them with the light. If they are already struggling the extra light might just finish them off.

 

[Alm0stAwesome]

Personally, I would set your lights to no more than 8 hours a day. Also, check out TNC Complete and Carbon. It is very cost efficient and is considered to be comparable to the much more expensive Tropica brand. I buy the 1000ml bottles and they last me roughly 6 months on my 340L tank. 
 
Fluctuations in carbon and nutrients are going to just feed algae. So be sure to dose every day. 
 
Knowing what the plants are will help but I'm not brilliant at identifying them. If you start a new thread requesting plant ID you'll get a quick response. 
 
What make/model are your filter and circulation pump?