I have a 55 gallon tank and I want to try plants. I have the lights that came with the tank. They are 2 15 watt fluorescent tubes. I was wondering what kind of lights I should get. Also I dont want to spend a ton of money on them. My hood that came with the tank will support an 18 inch bulb. I dont plan on having lots of plants only 10 or 15.
How much lighting?
- Thread starter tbj
- Start date
well, my local canadian tire sells plant/aquarium bulbs made by philips, you should be able to find these at a hardware store or something. get two of these. get a glass top for your tank. get a 4 foot dual bulb shoplight. use the shoplight and aquarium bulbs as your lighting. this setup should be able to suport all low light plants and *some* higher light ones.
If you want to get into growing plants, the MINIMUM you'll want to get is 80 watts of fluorescent light for a 55 gallon tank (which would be fine for growing most low-light plants like java moss, java fern, anubias, cryptocoryne), up to about 110 watts. Anything over this may cause algae in your tank if you don't do CO2 injection (which is kind of complicated when you're first learning).
You can probably buy a special kit to "retro-fit" your existing hood, or easy route is to get a glass top as dorkfish said, then you can buy single or double lamp fluorescent fixtures to lay on top.
If you're going to buy hardware store fluorescents, make sure they are at least 6700k (will say on the box). This represents the colour spectrum of the light--plants require a fluorescent of 6700 k (yellower light) to 10, 000 k (white light).
You can probably buy a special kit to "retro-fit" your existing hood, or easy route is to get a glass top as dorkfish said, then you can buy single or double lamp fluorescent fixtures to lay on top.
If you're going to buy hardware store fluorescents, make sure they are at least 6700k (will say on the box). This represents the colour spectrum of the light--plants require a fluorescent of 6700 k (yellower light) to 10, 000 k (white light).