Lighting a little tank

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eaolson

Registered Member
Feb 25, 2006
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I don't think I'm going to put my 29 gal tank up right now, since the apartment I just moved into doesn't really have a good place for it and I'm not going to be here too long. So I was thinking of getting one of those little desktop aquariums and putting some RCS in it.

Is it reasonable to try to do plants in one of those? The 6 gal that Tetra makes has 13 watts over it. I think the Eclipse 6 only has 8 watts. I know the watts/gal rule breaks down for these small sizes, but I don't know if it's at all reasonable to try to put even low light plants in one of these.
 
One thing you can do with smaller tanks is put them on a kitchen counter and then mount the perfect light for your system to the underside of the upper cabinet. I setup a 10g like that once with a 40w incandescent lamp shining on it from above. If you can do without a hood, you can get creative and use just about anything as a light source. Some of the smaller planted tanks I have seen on AC seem to be lit with something above the tank.
 
With only a watt+ per gal you can still grow some plants (just put the tank in a bright area--but never in direct sunlight). You can still grow Anubia, java fern, some crypts, ect.
 
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