Moe Jacob

I am fairly new to the hobby, but like everything else I do, I have to know EVRYTHING and have studied aquaria to death (no punn intended). Here comes the "newbie" story;

When I first set up my used 55gal in January, the bulbs were shot ... so I went to my LFS and explained that I had a FW tank that was cycling and needed to replace the bulbs. So I came home with two Marine-Glo 18" 15 watt flourescent light bulbs for my FW tank.

So today, I am staring at my 55gal tank (one of 4 tanks now) ... and started to question my lighting. I soon realized that I was sold the worng bulbs. The plants and fish are all doing great, but I have always noticed that it is not as bright as I would like, however the blueish tint is very nice at night. The tank is in a room with plenty of day light and my algae is under control ... the tank is very healthy (6 plants and fish) at the moment with an african dwarf frog, 3 swordtails, 9 green neon tetra, 4 glowlight tetra, 3 siamese algae eaters, and a male pearl gourami. ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 5 with 10% weekly PWC using Prime.

Sorry for the long winded explanation ... but my question is ... will changing both bulbs at once stress the fish or the frog? On the other hand, if the tank is healthy, should I leave "well enough" alone since I really don't mind the look?

Thanks & take care!
Moe

fins

well if you are going from a dull light to one thats much brighter it may stress the fish ...at least till they get used to the new light.... unless you have plants there to help with shading.....my angelfish was stressed for like 2 or 3 days till he got used to my new lighting i added...

Moe Jacob

Good point ... there is plenty of room to hide and "run for cover" including floating plants ... I'm just a little "upset" with the LFS ... now that I have educated myself, it is obvious that they did not have a clue what they were talking about in regards to several topics. Oh well ... live and learn!

Maybe if I changed one side at a time?

Thanks for your feedback ... I appreciate it ...

fins

yea... you could do one side at a time....but like you said you do have plenty of cover..