Totally confused about lighting

I have a 35 gallon tall planted tank. 36" long. I got my plants from Dustinfishtanks.com he said the plant lights would be fine. I got two 18 inch fluorescent shop lights at Home Depot. 15watts each. I told the salesman what I was using it for and he said not to worry about the Watts but to worry about the lumens. I purchased a natural light bulb and a plant and aquarium bulb. They are both T8. The plant and aquarium bulb gives out a pinkish light. The natural light gives 590 Lumens. The plant and aquarium light gives out 410 Lumens. Are these going to work for my plants? They are beginners plants and Hardy and supposed to be easy to grow.

 

Your lights should be fine. Lumens is the strength of the light. Another, more important in my opinion, is the color temperature of the light. Usually you want something in the 5000-10000k range, with 6500k being ideal. Usually lights labeled as daylight or natural are in that range closer to 5000-7000k so that should be good. The plant and aquarium bulb I'm sure is close to that range. So the combo should have you covered.

Be sure to keep a good balance of light, CO2 and nutrients. Light you can control by how much on time. CO2 you can't do a whole lot about unless you got a CO2 injection system. You can add some liquid CO2 substitute like Seachem Excel. As for nutrients, a well stocked tank will provide much of what you need. If you thought you needed a little fertilizer boost, I would check out Seachem Flourish Comprehensive, a good all around fertilizer with a little of everything you need.

 

The natural light color rendering index is 92. The plant aquarium light doesn't say. Thank you so much I haven't had a fish tank in about 20 years and the last one was 250 gal so this is very small and now I have live plants

 

The natural light color rendering index is 92. The color temperature is 5000K The plant aquarium light doesn't say

 

Not sure what the "color rendering index" correlates to, but the 5000k color temperature is the number your looking for. At 5000k it's ok, and at the "warm" end of the workable range.

 

The lumens doesn't matter really. Does it say " plant" or grow on the label?

Can you add the spectrum light that is listed? That is really helpful