72 Gallon bowfront with overflow and sump

[Feafur]

Okay...here are my questions. I have a 72 gallon bowfront with overflow and sump. I want to make it a planted discus tank. I have thought about doing it "natural" but, will not add fish until it is safe for them! So far, I have put down 1.5" of organic miracle grow ( which I read was safe ) and 1" of black sand. I added some gorgeous plants I got from customdrum on here. Had my heaters going at 80 degrees....then realized this morning that I hadn't done something correct and my temp reading was somewhere near 107! Steam coming off the top of the tank and everything! I was flipping out! I put a hydor wave in the tank to help circulate the water and drop the temp and it has come down quite a bit. I also turned off the heaters and will have to figure out what is going on with them! Anyways....my lights just died....my luck is BAD today....so I decided before going shopping....to ask you guys. I have a coralife lamp that is 48" long with 4 bulbs. What do you suggest bulb wise???? I get SO confused about the "rules of lighting". Could someone just tell me what to get and I will! hahahahha Also, could you please tell me if I have fried my plants??? They look fine, but will the boiling water eventually kill them??? Thanks guys!

[coach_z]

your plants will probably be fine...im sure they were hot having fun in 100* water but they will settle down. if you were cycling your tank (which you should have been) you will probably be set back quite a bit or need to begin all over again.

lighting your tank is going to be tricky because of your sump (sounds confusing but follow me as closely as possible). the WPG rule (a rule of thumb that is not necessarily accurate or reliable) can be applied to give you a general idea of what kind of lights you should have on your tank, also the type of plants you can grow. since you have a sump/overflow etc i would suggest never exceeding 1.8 WPG. the reson i suggest this is because once you get to a certain point with light over the tank it becomes a necessity to add co2 injection to a tank. a sump/overflow will gass off (eliminate) the co2 that you are injecting into your tank and will render co2 injection useless. (note: there are ways around this such as sealing your sump and minimizing surface agitation from your return pumps.)

what i would do in your situation, if you want to stay relatively low tech: stay below 115Watts of 6700K light and hope you dont need to inject co2.

a note about co2. co2 is the main limiting factor of growth in plant life. if you want to increase growth in your tank, increase the available co2 before you increase the amount of light over the tank.

hope i helped a little bit and didnt confuse y ou.

-chris

[Feafur]

Thanks SO MUCH! I will go and look for exactly what you said! I just hate trying to figure it all out! Okay....so since I have 4 bulbs....115/4 they should be like 28watts each??? Or what?