I am planning on doing the DIY CO2, I just thought I needed to increase my wpg before doing the CO2. I have heard that the plants will not benefit from CO2 if they don't have enough light to process the addition.
It sounds like I should be getting my DIY CO2 set up started. It seems this must be the time of year for upgrading lighting on fish tanks. All of the links in this post about where to get the lights at the prices shown are all out of stock. The T5HO is metal halide isn't it? I have heard there are heat isssues with using the metal halide. Input please! I would eventually like to grow some of the high light requirement plants that have the red coloring.
The only time CO2 does not benefit a tank is when there isn't enough light to grow plants at all. In all other cases CO2 will help, so even a low light tank will benefit.
T5HO are not metal halides. They are efficient fluorescents and use less wattage to output more light, they actually run cooler than regular fluorescents because of it (a 54w T5HO will use less energy and give off less heat than a 65w cf light while producing the same amount of light or more). That's the reason why they're highly recommended nowadays.
And like biggie357 pointed out, you don't need to go T5HO. You just need to up your wattage to around 50-60w total.
