Planted Tanks and the Lights you need

[Yams]

Hey all

I am newish here, but have one outstanding question for all you Ottawa Area Equipment / Plant experts. I currently have a ... well dieing 55gal Planted Aquarium. My current lighting... being... 24watts... is no where near what I need to keep these plants alive. They are trying their hardest, but if I do not get a new light all will be lost! (Only 1 Hornwart and 1 Wisteria)

Regardless, I want more plants, someday, once I get a new light. I was looking at the MarineLand LED Double Bright Lighting System, for a 24-36' Tank, but will that be ok for Low - Medium light plants? And possibly plants that need high light could struggle off of it?

I need something that looks 1/2 decent, as if its a huge 100 bulb setup my wife is going to kill me. The Marineland LED setups look fantastic, but will it keep my plants alive I wonder?

I really want a underwater planted Utopia for my fish! (all 4 of them currently!)

Anyone know where I can get something good, suggest a product?
The tank is approx 3 ft long, 1 feet wide and 1 foot tall....!!!

Thanks!

I believe I should I put this topic in the Plants section...but it deals with equipment sorta... sorry!

[JetJumper]

The Marineland LED setups look fantastic, but will it keep my plants alive I wonder?

For Plants, I don't think this would be the best idea.  The Marine Land LED fixture is more of a fixture for just providing basic light to the tank so that you can see things but I don't think it would be recommended for growing.  Plus plants require a different light spectrum then what this fixture provides.  I know the freshwater plant guru's will chime in, but thats what my thoughts were on it.

You would be better off with a T5 setup.

[Yams]

http://img832.imageshack.us/i/dsc00184z.jpg/
http://img707.imageshack.us/i/dsc00185sf.jpg/
My Hornwart looks very brown, struggling, not doing well,

http://img203.imageshack.us/i/dsc00188ec.jpg/

The same hornwart that came from this tank moved into my daughters tank, is doing exceptionally well, super green, looks nice!

[Darth]

have you considered a nice t-5 canopy? that would provide plenty of light for what you need, another thing is how old are your bulbs?

[Yams]

bulb...Singular, lol!

I am not sure, maybe a few months old this one is, while I was trialing all the Equipment, waiting on monies prior to setting it up, had some plants in it getting established in my basement, but it received natural window light there, so plants were ok, now where it sits it gets no window light at all.

Just looking for someting (Specific Examples best) to fit my Aquarium, around 150-200$ what I was thinking, maybe a little more if it looks awesome, I will fight the wife for it! lol

[Laura]

Your lighting will be guided by the plants you want and whether you plan on using CO2.

I don't use use CO2, have fairly low light plants and am happy with the results, but it is a very different look than a hi-tech CO2 and fertilized system.

Do you want to plant it and mostly leave it, or do you want to use CO2 and fertilizer? That info will help guide the plant gurus that we hope will chime in....

[asmackay]

for that price range I would buy this http://www.catalinaaquarium.com/product_info.php?cPath=71_190&products_id=1638&osCsid=555d3ce0a616a8d3df044e77c638cc2e

I bought mine from here and given usd to cdn exchange this is a good deal and allows 1, 2 or 3 bulbs so if you upgrade your tank to bigger then your all set.   I use a 4 bulb unit on a 75G but only use 2 bulbs most of the time.

[Yams]

I am looking at eventually going hi-tech, I love those "Dutch Aquariums" that are plant only, although I will not be able to get away with that in my house, so fish will come too, but I don't mind spending a hour a day "Gardening" my aquarium. Its a calming past time after work...

But that being said, I have much to learn before I will move to CO2 Injection, I have a Kent Marine Fert. right now, I have no opinion on it since I started using it on my 55gal and the lights are killing the plants, so I cannot tell what it is doing... lol!

So... ya! all advice is good! Need to start with good lights... move from there really! And if you can justify over 200$ being worth it... I might be able to work it with the wife! lol!

[asmackay]

other than cost CO2 injection is the way to go.  now that I made the investment in lights, co2 tank and regulator setup.  the tank costs nothing to maintain and let's me grow any plant easily. 

if you like planted tanks you will find yourself spending the money as it's hard to grow many types of plants without CO2.

I wouldn't invest in the light above unless you plan on going with CO2 injection at some point.  I would only use 1 bulb on if you don't use CO2 or ferts.

[Yams]

Well... CO2 scares me for now... getting a CO2, big stuff like that! lol! Someday I will get there, maybe for christmas get the family to buy me a CO2 injector or something!

gotta start slow though,

Lights -> Keep my low light plants alive
Fish -> Make aquarium look pretty to justify spending more money
CO2 -> keep medium / hard plants, and RED plants! Yeah!

Thats my plan, over the next years... per say. I want to go high-tech rather than invest in completely new setups

[Yams]

Hey

I think I have made up my mind, think I will get

http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsUS/ctl3684/cp57011/si4099158/cl0/2x39wt5linkablelightfixturefw36

that look ok you guys think? For Low - Med light plants for now? I will wait until I get my pay raise in Dec. to start upgrading towards high-tech, for now, this will do I think before I start CO2 injection, and help me establish my current plants?

Just one other question for you guys though, when the lights go out on the fish tank after your 8-12 hours of running them during the day, do you guys have blue lights or what to view the aquarium? I currently can't see anything when the lights go out, missing out on the joy of watching my Pleco eat his Zucchini! lol!

Thoughts on that situation? I do not believe this light will be able to provide me with evening viewing?

[garnpet]

You are on the Big Al's USA website - I don't believe they ship to Canada but I could be wrong.  Check out www.bigalsonline.ca - I didn't see the light you are looking at on the Canadian site though.

[Fishnut]

I'm a low light plant keeper and I don't use ferts.  If fish poop isn't enough to keep a plant going, I don't keep the plant.  Here's my experience with lighting:

In college I had a 33 gallon tank...36 x 12 x 18 tank. I put a double light fixture on it with 1 flora bulb and one day light bulb.  The plants grew like MAD!!  There were not too many fish AND it was like a tank that was CO2 injected.  No ferts either.

Now, I have a 24" tall tank.  I also had plants growing lie mad in it (but not the more deicate ones any more) with the same bulbs but they were plugged into end caps with a switch, covered in tin foil.  I got a double light fixture for my birthday, put the same lights in and started watching the plants die.  It seems that by taking the lights off the glass top by an additional inch or so, it was enough that the light penetration wasn't good.  My college tank had a better fixture that allowed the bulbs to sit very close to the glass top.

My lesson is that it's not just the watts per gallon, it's the distance those watts have to penetrate to get to the plants.

[Yams]

Well anything is better than what I currently have, watching Hornwort die is painful! lol, was growing so nicely in my 16gal, being the so called "easiest of all plants"

Now its not doing so well, with my current tank specs, its 20' in Height, 18' Wide and 36' Long, I need something more than 24W

So, just looking for specific items, from stores in Ottawa, no so keen on the Online purchase

[magnosis]

Don't worry, take it slowly

I've just been there, and I'm still refining my process and setup. Your hornwort should be able to survive these rough days.  Mine has been on the verge of extinction more than once, and I was happily surprised to see it spring back to life over and over. 

Hornworth is, in my experience, susceptible to low light.  In my previous setup the plant was growing 1-1.5" a day at the top, but dying at the bottom because not enough light was hitting it.

Trimming is key.  Don't let it grow too high.  Trim is once a week or every second week and that will help it sprout new stems and get bigger (wider) and thus able to absorb more light over time.

Be careful with fertilizers, especially if you have a low-light / low-co2 setup. Excess of ferts will be consumed by algae if your plants aren't fed enough light and co2 to consume everything you dose.  If you do choose to dose ferts, make sure you keep on top of water parameters at all time.  I've had to almost completely empty my tank because I dosed way too much iron, and ended up with an overwhelming long thread algae bloom.  It was disgusting.

Good resources for dosage are the Simplified E.I. Dosing Guide (google it), Chuck's Calculator, and FertFriend (from plantedtank.net, your best friend for all plant-related matter)


For lights, I also don't recommend LED.  In my opinion this is more of a toy than anything else. An expensive one, that is.  Just get a decent T5 / T5HO fixture with 6700K and 10000K bulbs.  For a 55g you can expect in the range of 200-250$ for that setup, but it will literally be like night and day compared to your current lighting (pun intented).  You can also use CFL's (I use that in one of my smaller planted tank) it is much cheaper, but you won't get the optimal color temperature.  Still, it's been proved to be good enough by others (worth a read : Jeremy Squires on Household CF bulbs)

Good luck !