Best Light for planted tanks

A

AQUA_OBSESSION

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Dec 12, 2005
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What is the ultimate set up for a planted tank???

I just got a 90 gal tank and want to have it as a planted discus tank.

2 Questions:

#1 Best light on the market (money being no object)?

#2 Best value light on the market?

Thanks in advance for your feedback....
 
it all depends on what you want to do with the tank. there are low light plants and there is high light plants. if you want some great power compact lights i would go with ahsupply.com. if you need to go cheaper i would go with some T8 lighting from home depot. here is a link about lighting that helped me out a lot.

http://woo.gotdns.com/Aquarium/Lighting.htm
 
Wow, I've been thinking of getting a 100g tank for a planted discus tank myself. My lighting plan if I do take the plung would be to construct a custom light fixure using a 1x96 watt and a 2x36 watt fixture from ahsupply. My hope would be to keep to low and mid light plants in order to keep the aquarium as low maintenence as possible. Even then I'm thinking of having injected co2 though.
 
best lighting solution would be metal halide
best value would be metal halide, you get what you pay for..
when you can manage the tank with metal halide youre true aquatic planter :)
 
I've not tried halides but the best lights I've used are HO T5s. Because of the slim diameter you can pack a bunch of them over your tank and get a very even spread of light.
 
I appreciate everyone's great feedback. Unfortunately, money is a factor in my decesion - as much as I would love to go with 2 of those amano lights there is no way I can justify spending that much.

My question is with the ahsupply company. Do they send you everything you need in that kit or do I need to order anything else (except for the bulbs).

Matt
 
AH Supply kits are great- have used them for years. The more important consideration here is your choice of fish- discus- do not like bright light. One wpg or so is enough for them but not enough for many plants.

Discus also need warm water, something many plants dont like, so pay attention to this in your choice of plants.
 
Best bang for the buck is definitely ODNO (overdriven nowmal output) lighting. If you are relatively handy, you can put together all the lighting you need over your 90 for about $70. Here's the plans I used for my 55. I'm running 2x ODNO 6500K T832s, and 2 NO 6500K T832s.

http://www.gwapa.org/articles/ODNO/
 
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