plant lite

[dave]

 My mom has a light that she keeps on her plants that simulates sun light how would that work with my new plants and bulbs or will the florecent light that is in my tank be enough light foir them?

                                        Dave

 

[dattack]

Well you got to tell us first:
1.  how many gallons is your tank?
2.  what substrate you have?
3.  how much watts do you have on your fluorescent?
4.  what kind of fluorescent?
5.  Are you trying to grow plants and which kind?

 

[dave]

it is a ten gallon tank and the light i have in their is the oriinal from when i got it at the store i have some african grass or somthign like that and i am growing some bulb plants that i got at wal-mart and i am gessing that the plant light would be around 60 watts i i got one thanxc for the help


                                   Dave

 

[ronrca]

Any flor. will not be be enough to grow plants. It is better to research to see which tubes are best. Tubes come in many different light sprectums. RubyBarb will tell you more about it Im sure.

 

[JWright]

60 watts would be more than enough for a 10g. IME, spectrum doesn't really matter (to a degree). For your basic plants, nothing fancy, simple floros will work.

Josh

 

[scrimman]

Dave, you're talking too generically.
Plant lighting depends on what kind of plants you have (or are planning on having) and thier requirements, the wattage/gallon ratio for your tank
, and to a far lesser extent the spectum covered by the bulbs.
Having the "wrong kind" of florescent isn't a death knell for your plants. It just means they won't grow quite as fast.
You need to do a little more research.  Go to www.thekrib.com, look under aquatic plants, and get the info you need.

 

[Matt Nace]

The plant lights are a wide spectrum bulb. The include red and blues. It is a all around bulb for spectrum.

I use mostly GE sunshines. Seams to work the best. But the others will do fine.

On my 30 planted , I use 3 sunshines and one plant light.
On my 55 I use 2 sunshines and one plant
My 10 g, I use 1 sunshine
My other 30, I use 2 ge sunshines, and 2 65 watt plant lamps ($15 at the Home depot for the light and lamp)

Here is a link to check out.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Hills/2637/spectra.html

 

[dattack]

Hey ruby how did you manage to put 3 bulbs on your 30 gallon?  You use two ballasts or just tell me how you setup your lighting?  I am trying to figure out how to increase my lighting on my 20 gallon but could only manage to get 2 24" fluorescents at this time.  I wanted to add a third.

 

[Cillana]

I use 2 sunshine and 2 plant bulbs for my 55 gallon aquarium. Each fixture holds two bulbs so that it doesn't take up much room. I plan to us one double bulb and one single bulb fixture for my 20 gallon high. Double bulb fixtures may solve your problem, dattack.

 

[Matt Nace]

I use 2 double fixtures(4 bulbs) on my one tank

I use 2 singles, and 2 mounted(on the wall)plant lamps on my second planted tank.

On my 55 gallon, I use a single 40 watts strip, and a double strip(home depot shop light)

I bought the one that had cheaper looking sides, cause I wanted to bend them in to fit better.The 2 lights in the shop light were also closer togeather than the other they offered.

I haven't seen any at Home depot for a 20 or 30 gallon , that I really liked, that is why I choose to try the plant lights(65 watts)

They really did help, but you need to leave some space do to the heat .

 

[SegaDojo]

i used to think that the specific spectrum was the most important thing... but i proved myself wrong when i installed a 13 watt power compact in my 6g.  I didn't have enough cash to purchase the bulbs from AHsupply considering the prices are in american and shipping was so expensive.. so i bought 3 dollar cool white PC bulbs at a local hardware store.. and to my surprise, the plants displayed positive effect with the addition of the 13 watt cool white.  As of now, I'm using a 8 month old 8 watt powerglo, and a 9 month 13 watt PC "bulb".. and my glossostigma is showing much better growth than the ones in my 10g (lit by 15 watt Triton, and 15 watt Zoo Med UltraSun)

 

[Matt Nace]

you would think that the "plant" bulbs, wouldn't be good in aquariums, cause they do focus some of the spectrum toward the red.

You know, as the bulbs get older, most of the normal bulbs shift their spectrum toward the red, leading to algae more so. I personally, never had a problem with this...and the GE bulbs are 6 or 7 dollars..so that is a great deal. They are also look nice I thought. Not as bright as a triton though.

Yeah...It is over rated with the spectrums, but I always read the cool blues  were not good for plants..guess you found that untrue.

 

[SegaDojo]

actually, the cool whites are a little more on the red side... probably anywhere from 5000k to 5500k.. there wasn't any info on the amount of kelvins on the box.