lilsoccakid

hi everyone. i hav a 48 inch wide 55 gallon tank. it has spots for 2 18'' bulbs, so i need to get a whole new canopy for my tank so i can make it heavily planted. could somebody point me in the right direction as far as types of lighting, and the hood/canopys needed for them. also, can somebody tell me a little about the differences between compact flourescent bulbs, HO flourecent, T-5, and VHO lighting, and wat is best for a heavily planted tank.

how is this setup? i think the luner lights are cool, and its a good deal

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...8&pcatid=11418

would this be good for a HEAVY planted aquarium? its 130 watts, so thats roughly 2.4 WPG.

also, my LFS wont take returns on plants, so is their anything i can do to make this last till about march 20th? (my bday when i get the lights). right now im adding a little extra plant supplement, and they are floating less then an inch from the surface to get more lighting

Wolfgang8810

CF bulbs are ok and for a heavily planted aquarium at 2.4 watts would be a moderate to low lighting aquarium.

HO fluiorescent means High Output and you get brighter bulbs at smaller sizes

VHO is Very High Output which is the same a s HO more watts in smaller bulbs. on your tank i would recommend either HO or T-5 to get the most bang for your buck. Try to get to about 3.5 wattts per gallon you can do some higher light plants and still wont have to inject C02. Hope this helps


MArk

lilsoccakid

this helped a lot, thanks for your response!

Wolfgang8810

Not a problem.
What kind of plants are you looking to do?

A good plant site is Plantgeek.net It is basically fishlore for plants and has most of the same people from here on it as well.

Mark

lilsoccakid

im ordering my light today, and i think im going to go with this T-5 light...

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...0&pcatid=16770

this is the only fixture i can afford (im 16), and this gives me a WPG of about 2.2
(found WPG using only 50 gallons of my 55, because of my 60 pounds of sand)
i think this is alright for most plants, right?

i would really appreciate a quick response, ill be ordering as soon as i get an ok!

Wolfgang8810

Youll do ok with that jsut dont get any high light plants. sitck to medium low light plants and youll do fine

COBettaCouple

Looks great and that's a good price for getting into T-5.

lilsoccakid

thanks! ill order it today

lilsoccakid

i just recieved my light today from drsfostersmith! i ordered it the 25th at around 10 at night with standard 10 day shipping, and it came today! (2 days later!) it looks great, everything is so bright! thanks for your help!

Wolfgang8810

pictures are in order lol glad you like it.

lilsoccakid

heres the pics! next weekend ill be going to the pet store to get 10-15 more plants!
the fish love the plants, especially my GBR's, who wont get away from a plant that makes a little cave-like hole with plants on one side, glass on one, and driftwood on another

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mirciulie

Oh boy,

what did I get myself into?

I have a 50gal, 48 inch wide tank also. I bought a canopy with a single strip light on it. I have a few plants and reading here I realized I need more lights

Great! more $$$. The thing is, I'm not planning on having a heavy planted tank, so I'm just trying to work with what I have.

Considering that I have a 50 gal, minus like 15% for gravel, wood and the rest, lets say I have 40 gals of water. I think the hood came with a 30W bulb. Is there such thing as a 65W or so fluorescent? I could find only 40W, on my quick search online.

Having a 65W would give me around 1.6WPG, which I think would suffice my needs.

Please let there be such light!!!


-Mike

mirciulie

http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod.../1/product.web

Not sure if I have a T12 socket, though....I'll check when I'll get home. And maybe that fixture is not designed for that much wattage. It shouldn't get how, since it's fluorescent (opposed to a regular incandescent bulb, which wastes 90% of energy on heat, instead on producing light).

If this works, that'll give me more then 2.5WPG, which should be PLENTY for my tank, IMHO.

calinb

This post may be too late to help you this time, but I've added sockets to existing light strips.

This 23 watt 6500K compact fluorescent spiral fits inside most light strips:
http://www.servicelighting.com/catal...m?prod=EK49327

You can obtain sockets from a hardware or home improvement store and place one on each end of the hood--at least they fit outside of the 18" fluorescent tubes on my hoods. You can either wire them in series with the existing lights and switch or get the sockets with individual twist switches, like those used in the low-end "incandescent" light hoods, and wire them in parallel with the existing switch and power supply. Look online or get a basic book covering lamp rewiring to learn about polarized AC plugs and grounds, etc.

You'll also need to fabricate an aluminum reflector / heat shield to go behind the bulbs--or perhaps heavy metal tape would work. I've made all my shields out of 0.25" aluminum sheet.

If you can fit two sockets (one one each end) you'll add another 1W per gallon to your 50!