I have a new 40G long aquarium, but no lights yet. I thought the lighting fixtures in the stores like Petsmart etc. would have 2 slots for bulbs, but they only have one. Is there any advantage to getting 2 smaller fixtures, side by side, and using 2 different light bulbs, one for plants and one for ambience? It's a bit more expensive doing it that way, but I don't want to be buying a bunch of different hoods because I can't make up my mind. Advice appreciated.
lighting 1 or 2 bulbs
- Thread starter spottea
- Start date
I think everyone on that question would have their own preference. For me, I'd rather have one single fixture that fits the tank... not two smaller ones side by side. If the only one I could find that did that came with standard or insufficient lighting, then I'd gut it and install a retrofit kit in the fixture.. or several sockets going across to use CFLs.
It depends on what type of tank you are going for...plants will use all the available light they can so "ambient" lighting is misleading. I would specify which type of setup you are trying.
I was only going to get some undemanding plants like java, which I'm going to tie on one of those vine things I've seen. But, I wanted to get one decent light at least. As I said, I haven't bought any yet. I just have the glass top that came with the tank.
What do you mean by 'ambience'? If you want an actinic bulb to make the fish's color pop, you could go with a double strip light with one 10000K and one actinic bulb.
