Should I double my lighting?

[V1K]

I have a 112L/30 gallon planted tank with some fish. The light is 16 W, 1650 lumen LED. The lid has an option to add the second one like that. Not planning to add CO2. Would it be better for the plants to keep the lighting as it is, or should I buy a second lamp? Some green algae on hard surfaces would actually be a good thing, as I keep hillstream loaches, but I don't want any algae growing on top of my plants.

 

[jkkgron2]

If your plants are doing good then I don’t think you need to change the lighting.

 

[RayClem]

I have a 112L/30 gallon planted tank with some fish. The light is 16 W, 1650 lumen LED. The lid has an option to add the second one like that. Not planning to add CO2. Would it be better for the plants to keep the lighting as it is, or should I buy a second lamp? Some green algae on hard surfaces would actually be a good thing, as I keep hillstream loaches, but I don't want any algae growing on top of my plants.

16 watts of LED lighting is pretty weak for a 30 gallon tank. However, if you are only trying to grow low light plants like ferns and Anubias, you will be fine. If you want to grow plants that like more light, a second light would be great.

To give you a comparison, I have a 10 gallon tank with a 26 watt light, a 40 gallon tank with a 60 watt light and a 55 gallon with a 72 watt light. However, that provides a high level of light, more than you might need on your tank. Lighting with 32 watts should give you a moderate level of light. If you wanted to do high light plants, then something around 48 watts would be needed.

 

[V1K]

If your plants are doing good then I don’t think you need to change the lighting.

I planted it a month ago, the plants are barely growing, their colours are dull and their old leaves are collecting some brown mulm, that might be brown algae, but I'm not sure. I'm fertilizing with some microelemental ferts.

 

[jkkgron2]

I planted it a month ago, the plants are barely growing, their colours are dull and their old leaves are collecting some brown mulm, that might be brown algae, but I'm not sure.

Yeah, you might want to increase your lighting if the plants aren’t doing well.

 

[V1K]

I ordered the second lamp, hopefully that improves things. Today in one of my facebook groups I saw someone who had 4 lamps like that in no CO2 tank only slightly larger than mine. In theory, it should be algae kingdom, but it isn't and the plants look amazing, even though they planted it a month ago, just like me.

 

[V1K]

Doubling the lights worked well. My moss is lush green again, the plants that weren't growing or even had some stem rot are showing new growth. Brown algae is maybe not as much gone as covered by the new plant leaves (where it will probably die due to lack of light). No green algae so far, except some spot algae on stones, but since I have hillstream loaches, that's kind of a good thing.