Growing Plants

[shell]

I have 2,  25 Watt Lifeglo fluorescent lights over a 33 gallon tank.  I thought I would have better luck growing plants with this, but still have trouble.  They grow best floating on top, the planted ones don't do well.  I also provide and iron supplement.  Any suggestions?

[redbelly]

More light!!
You only have 1.5 watts per galon with that lighting set up.
I would suggest fabricating your own hood and installing daylight floresant tubes from home depo or rona.
do a search on this web site and there should be quite a vew posts about it.

[shell]

Are the daylight tubes stronger than the Lifeglo?  I was assured by Superpet that the lifeglo would be adequate to grow plants.  Would they fit into the hood I already have?

[redbelly]

the lifeglo are a waste of money, thats the real difference. the daylight tubes are only a couple bucks. the life glow tubes will grow plants but in my opinion its just a simple mater that you need more tubes in there. 1.5 watts per gallon just isnt enought light to grow very mush at all. 3 W/g would be much better.
I experienced a ton of fustration growing nice plants in the begining in my piranha tank when i only had 2 40W floresants over it which were also i might add the wrong spectrum (dont buy "plant and aquarium" floresants from the hard ware store...) when i added another 2 tubes my plants just exploded in growth. one of them quite litterally grew right out of my tank (thats a being incoresctly informed about a plant at the time of purchaes!).

[redbelly]

what is the K rating on your life glo?
i am not saying they are garbage or anything, they may work just fine, you just will have to add another couple floresants and next time you purchase them save your money and buy a better balast.

[squeeker]

I believe the lifeglo are 6700 K

[Shouganai]

I don't think I would use life-glo for aquatic plants. Currently I just use the cheap daylight bulbs (4x30W over my 65), but in the past I've used aqua-glo and power-glo (both 18,000K iirc), with some success, at least in regards to low-light plants.

[gvv]

According to what I have read everywhere the most important is intensity, while > 3W/G is of no use (according to some sources even with CO2).
Light temp will give in best case 10 % in addition...

Regards

[squeeker]

Is intensity equal to Kelvin rating?

Is that related to the spectrum of light emitted?

Life-Glo seem much "brighter", what makes them less suitable than aqua-glo and power-glo?

[shell]

I find the lifeglo light to be very yellow.

[redbelly]

kelvin rating has to do with spectrum. the lower the number the more in the red spectrum where as higher numbers contain more of the blue spectrum. it also has to do with how deep into the water the light will actually penetrate but that is because blue light will penetrate deeper.
a good rule of thumb i find is for a regular tank 6500K is what you want and for a deeper tank (more than 18") 10000k works better.

shell, on my heavily plated 15g, i have a row of 7 15 W T8 daylight floresants from rona (i actually like rona lights better than home depo and the rona at merivale and huntclub has knowledgeable staff and they have a book giving ALL the specs on all of thier floresants!!) I have a sheet of mylar above for a bit of reflection back down. this is way overkill but some light is lost as i dont have any side reflectors.
This set up is also overdriving the floresants.
I am going to build another such set up for my 33g an all in all it will end up costing around $80 including 2 new balasts and new lights of course.
i wouldnt waste you money on any ____-glow floresants.

[Roop]

those speciality lights are like $30 a pop + $200 hoods. DIY. i use 2 4' shop lights (160watts) on my 55g. i don't have any problems growing plants. the shoplights and bulbs were maybe $50.