Bill

Hi!

I have a 4ft tank without a proper hood...



I want a good, cheap, white light. There are 4ft ones in my LFS for around £15. Should I go for one of these? I'm planning on having about 10 aquarium plants. I don't know anything about wattage etc., so any ideas/recommendations would be great!

Thanks!

~Bill

hamstermann

If you want to grow real plants, find out what they need for light levels. you want lights in the 6700 to 10000K spectrum.
Low light plants need 1 watt per gallon
medium/moderate light plants need at least 2 watts per gallon
High and very high plants need 3 or more watts per gallon.

Plant keeping can get expensive fast because of the added need for light plus CO2 setup and fertilizers. If you want to keep it cheap, make sure that you only have low-light level plants and about 1 watt per gallon for them. the fish can then do most of your fertilizing and you may not need CO2 at all.

griffin

another option if you want higher light plants, but don't want to get into ferts/co2 - you could just get a few plants, and let the fish do the fertilizing