75 gallon lighting Q

S

sm_monster

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May 1, 2012
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Hi everyone!


I'm got my 75 gallon a couple years ago and it came with a diy stand and hood that had 4 (2 rows) 55W, 6700K lights with 2 work horse ballasts. Unfortunately, the guy used press board and with the tank humidity, it's falling apart. I want to redo the hood with the rain gutter type lighting but keep the bulbs and maybe add a 3rd line of lights. I'm thinking about doing a row of 2 6700k, then 2 10,000k, then another 2 6700k. The 10,000 would only be on between 10 and 4 (hottest part of the day). I want to turn it into a heavily planted tank with a deep sand bed. I have the plants in a grow out tank for now and I don't even know what I have really. I have a dwarf lily but that's all I know for sure. I was so happy when the bulb finally sprouted!


Is this a good idea? Would anyone be interested in helping me ID plants? I've never really had a planted tank before and I have quite a battle ahead of me since it will have goldfish... at least they're good fertilizer!
 
Yeah I think if I can just stop them from pulling the plants out, that will be half the battle. As long as I keep them well fed, I hope it will work out well enough. I want as much of a plant variety I can get.

Here's what I got:

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Picture 1: I have a lot of the prong/hand leaved plants. They're multiplying everywhere.

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Picture 2: I have a few of these bulbs and one of them gave off plantlets last year. There's also that red/pinkish greenish plant. I have a lot of that too.

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Picture 3: I'm curious what the stringy plant is... I have a lot of that too. How should I plant it? It roots everywhere! And there's a phototroping onion thing.. there's another pic below.

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Picture 4: This is also a stringy plant but it has bigger leaves.

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Picture 5: this is an algae poof I got out of a store tank. How do I get it to spread? It's all connected to one tiny rock...

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Picture 6: This is my big lily plant. I'm really excited about it. It has a lot of growing to do :)

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Picture 7: I was told these were water onions but they don't have ribbon like leaves, they're more like spikes. They phototrope like no other.

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Picture 8: Bits of Java moss. Any tips on getting it to grow more?

IMAG0171.jpg IMAG0170.jpg IMAG0169.jpg IMAG0168.jpg IMAG0167.jpg IMAG0166.jpg IMAG0165.jpg IMAG0164.jpg
 
I probably wouldn't add another set of lights, what I would recommend is just replacing the old hood that's falling apart with new hardwood so it won't break apart like the previous particle board one did. I wouldn't go the gutter route myself, I would just pick up some new reflectors and mount the lights onto the new reflectors in side the hood. However I would paint the inside of the hood, and reflectors white because it'll reflect light better than metal finishes.

I would go with 2 x 6700k bulbs in the front, and 2 x 10000k bulbs in the back, and set them up on a digital timer. 9am 67000k bulbs come on, 12noon the 10000k bulbs then come on simulating a light burst for the hottest part of the day, 3pm 10000k bulbs turn off leaving the 6700k bulbs to simulate the final lighting of the day, and finally 5pm the 6700k bulbs shut off.

For a 75 gallon tank this type of lighting will give you ample PAR micromols for the tank, and give you a high lighting setup.

LightIntensityTable.jpg



The graph above will give you the PAR vs distance of the lighting for your tank.


As for Java Moss, by putting it into a high light setup will induce it to grow. Pic 7 - is indeed aquatic Onion Plants, Pic 6 - Red Tiger Lotus (lily), Pic 5 - appears to be a bit of a marimo moss ball that separated from the ball, Pics 3-4 - is Ludwigia Repens, Pic 2 - is a Aponogetons plants, but Pic 1 I can't tell because the quality of pic isn't that good.

LightIntensityTable.jpg
 
Thanks for the input! That's a great table! So it seems I need the equivalent of 2 - T5HO bulbs. The bulbs I have are the compact 21" type with the straight pins. Would the 3rd line of lights push it into the too high light area? I'll have a black background and black substrate that will absorb light so it wont be bouncing around much. I'm just worried about the Red Tiger Lotus not making it to the surface because there's not enough light. I really want the pads on top of the water. I think they look neat and would be too tough for my goldfish to eat once formed.

Plant names noted. Now to get more variety!

Yeah, the plant I was referring to does turn out to be a water sprite! Thanks! It used to be really dense but then I moved and some leaves got crunched in the bag so I broke them off. Now there are plantlets forming off of those leaves :) I should have tons of huge ones soon. Should be good mid-back ground plants.

Any suggestions on what to do with the Ludwigia Repens? Should I plant it in the substrate or tie it to something? I'm going to add a small section of drift wood somewhere, would that be a good place?

Will the onion eventually become more ribbon like? I don't really mind the spikes because my goldfish can't bother them but it would be nice to have the ribbons.
 
I recently traded my 75 gallon heavily planted setup for a 100 gallon tank and stand, but my 75 gallon I went with the Coralife Freshwater Deluxe Power Compact system which was 4x65w bulbs, and I couldn't stop my 3 Red Tiger Lotus plants from growing. Every day it seems there was a new leaf coming out, then by the end of the week it was already grown to the top of the water.

So you definitely have enough lighting to grow Tiger Lotus plants, amongst any other plants you wish to go with. I would plant the Ludwigia Repens into the substrate, as for driftwood you can go with Anubias Nana, or Java Ferns and tie them to the driftwood piece. As for the Onion plant, it looks like you have what's known as the Dwarf Onion Plant, which means that the stems are kinda spiked looking. If you were to get Crinum thaianum species of Onion plants, it's stems have that ribbon look you're wanting.

http://www.aquariumplants.com/Crinum_Onion_Plant_Crinum_thaianum_large_p/ww548.htm
 
Mike, thanks for your reply! Mine looks like it's starting to do that under the 2 55w bulbs I have on the one half of the tank atm. It's getting poofy :) How deep should I plant it when I get substrate? Right now it's sitting in a net pot with glass marbles... the roots are already venturing out.

I'm kind of happy to have the dwarf onion since it seems to be goldfish proof. It will be a good background plant. I get what I can at the stores around.

I'll have to look into some different designs for hoods. Maybe a combo of what I have now and the rain gutter one. At least I now know that what I have now is fine and if I want to replace a line with a 10k line, it will be ok :)

Thanks!
 
When planting aquatic onion plants you only want to bury it as far as the middle of the onion bulb itself, any deeper and you could risk them dying off. As for planting Tiger Lotus', plant it deep enough just to cover the roots, if it doesn't have the bulb section then you can bury it about 1"-1.5" into the substrate, but if it does have the bulb attached then only bury the roots leaving most of the bulb above the substrate. As for Ludwigia Repens you can bury it 1"-1.5" into the substrate, and same goes for Water Sprite. For Aponogetons bury them 0.5"-1" and they'll do fine.
 
This is a bit of a different question but has anyone tried root growth hormone on aquatic plants? I've used it to propagate terrestrial plants... I need the plants to have a big root systems so the goldfish can't pull them up.
 
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