Lighting for low/med light 20 long

Hello! I am in the process of setting up a medium light 20 long tank. The problem is that I plan on installing a glass cover, so I'm wondering which light would work best? I love the sleek look of the current usa plus, but with the addition of the glass lid would the already low par be too little? Even though the tank is only 12" tall all the par ratings I've seen show the current usa at 36 par at 12". With the substrate would that be enough? Any other lights you suggest?

 

If you're not dead-set on a particular brand, Finnex's planted plus is an exceptional light. I personally do not care for current usa's products. This is debatable but 40-60 PAR is generally considered medium to medium-high lighting, anything above that is unarguably high to extremely high light. At 18" the planted plus produces, without a reflector or glass top, 50-55 PAR. Using a 1/4" glass top reduces PAR by about 5%, if you have a glass shop near you, you can ask them to cut you a piece of 3/16" glass. If you're lucky and tell them what its for, they'll cut it from a piece of scrap glass and give it to you for free like my guy did.

EDIT: My information was based on what I saw when my LFS guy was demonstrating his, but it just occurred to me his was hung a few inches above the tank, albeit with a reflector, not sitting on the tank. (The tank was 18" deep and there was a gap between the light, the top of the tank, and the actual water column) I can't confirm this myself but others have claimed it produces more PAR than that. This is a good question for the guys over at Planted Tank

 

How about finnex stingray. Does anyone know the par for a stingray for a 40 breeder?

 

I can't speak on its PAR but the reviews I've read when I was looking into getting one suggested they're on the lower end of the scale in terms of light and usable light. Not at all a bad light, and the fact that they're super slI'm is super appealing to people like me who were looking to retrofit a hood. If you're keeping it a low-light tank they're great, if you genuinely need a strong light source I would look into some of their other light bars.

 

Thanks for your suggestions, I've had bad luck with finnex in the past so I'm trying to stay away from them.

 

Any other ideas besides finnex?

 

Marineland makes one called the double bright I believe, and it's gotten good reviews as well but the only marineland product I've ever used is the HOT magnum 250 on one of my tanks. The more professional of the two LFS' for me carries a really high end brand that I can't for the life of me remember but they use them in all their showcase tanks and in their stock room. I'd be happy to contact them tomorrow if you'd like and provide some insight, they've informed me on them before but at the time I was just setting up my first planted tank and wasn't too concerned with dropping a C-note on lights, haha.

 

If you could ask them that would be great!

 

I like the Beamswork planted lights on Amazon. I have low tech tanks with medium lighting and plants doing nicely.

 

Thanks, Ill check them out!

 

Very busy day today, got stuck working a 14 hour shift but get tomorrow off now. The aquatics shop left a voicemail that my corydoras paleatus' came today so conveniently enough I'll actually be stopping in sometime tomorrow, likely in the afternoon since I get to sleep in lol. Will reply with details.

 

Ah no rush, get your sleep! would love to see a picture of those corys though!

 

Alrighty, I know this is a day late but they were having their anniversary party today and tomorrow so I opted to wait a day and go bat crazy with the plants, haha. They actually had two brands, although based on the name they may be divisions of the same company. The first one was the Mr. Aqua 3-series, and at 12" deep it was at 70 PAR with no glass top. The second one is from Up-aqua (I'm almost positive both of these brands are based in japan, and they are by no means low-end lights) and it was the z-series and or pro z-series. He showed me their rows of LED's and there is easily 2-3x the amount of LED's packed into the same area as some of the other american brands. I was thoroughly impressed. I didn't think to get the technical specs on them but after searching planted tank forums, one thread on here about them, and a few other forums and enthusiast pages both seemed to be very highly praised. I myself may end up investing in one of these now because of todays visit.

 

Thanks for your help!!!!

 

No problem man