Light suggestions!!

[Surprise_Clown_Loach]

I'm having trouble identifing my light length. I believe it's 30", but the bulb only measure ~ 27.5".

Regardless, it looks alot like this
30" Coralife Aqualight T-5 Single Linear Strip 1X18W Fixture

Single T5 fixture with a Colormax bulb.

I added an Anubias on 8/15/08 and it seems to be slowly dieing. (black dots forming at the leaf edges, leaf edges getting "old" wrinkles) and I believe I need to up my lighting.

A DIY hood + DIY lighting may be in order too.

So, what would you suggest for lighting?

Community tank. 11 fish. One plant. If/when I can get one to surrive, I'll be adding lots of live plants! CO2 is not an option at this point. I'm working my way up to it. 1st is to make a couple plants survive.

 

[iapetus]

I added an Anubias on 8/15/08 and it seems to be slowly dieing. (black dots forming at the leaf edges, leaf edges getting "old" wrinkles) and I believe I need to up my lighting.

Are the leaves turning yellow? My anubias plants get spots on them, too, but that's just 'cause I have a slight algae problem in my tank.

 

[Surprise_Clown_Loach]

Leafs are not yellow.

Algae huh. I'll see if I can get pics.

 

[Big Vine]

Anubias are one of the few plants I've been able to keep growing under very low-light conditions. Have you made sure to bury only the roots (and not the rhizome)? What is the tank temperature?
BV

 

[iapetus]

Anubias are one of the few plants I've been able to keep growing under very low-light conditions. Have you made sure to bury only the roots (and not the rhizome)?

Augh! Not burying the rhizome! So sophmoric, so simple! On every tank cleaning, I make sure that my rhizomes aren't buried in gravel. Thanks for bringing that up, BV!

 

[Surprise_Clown_Loach]

The rhizome was in the gravel, but not deeply. I've got fluorite under the gravel that I attempted to set the roots in, and then covered the rhizome with the tank gravel. I have just now moved the gravel to expose most of the rhizome.

Upon closer look, some of the leafs are beginning to turn yellow.

Tank temp is @ 76 degree F.

 

[Surprise_Clown_Loach]

Pic!

Thanks for the help!!

You can kinda see on the red rock behind the plant, black dotted algae (I assume) is covering the top of that rock.

 

[Surprise_Clown_Loach]

Better pic of the rock.

 

[Big Vine]

Yup, uncovering the rhizome is a good idea.
Your tank temp. sounds fine...I was more worried that it was set unusually high or something, in which case I thought maybe the plant leaves were rotting.

To be honest, the anubias you just showed in those recent pics looks pretty healthy to me. Then again, I'm not as much of a 'green thumb' as many of the other folks around here, so maybe there's something in the pics that I'm just not seeing, lol.
BV

 

[Striker2807]

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the rhizome?

 

[Surprise_Clown_Loach]

hehe.. I had to google it.

it's the *backbone* of this plant that the roots and leafs grow out of.

http://www.mciap.org/herbarium/images/rhizome.gif

 

[Striker2807]

Ahh got ya now I know!