How to light a 3' deep tank?

Tom; I can't seem to find Mr. Hill's e-mail address. Is there any way you could PM it to me or something? Thanks.

Also, I created a spreadsheet using the data in the 3rd volume of Amano's Nature Aquarium series to see if I could find any kind of a trend in the way he's lighting his tanks. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything that indicated some kind of a "formula" for lighting the tanks. However, one of my favorite tanks is on the higher end of the scale, and to get about that much light in my tank, I'd need about what you suggested- 900-1000w, so I'm going to go with that...

This is the chart, if you're interested:
http://www.angelfire.com/pro/geeky1/tanks.htm
 
Thanks GCA, that's similar to the wood I might send to CA shortly. Albany Aquarium might buy a large amount if we can get a good deal on a number of roots.

But this is a similar to what my own tank design is like, the wood protrudes above the water level. I had MH's but I did not like the globe fixtures. I would have preferred the HQI double ended MH lights w/electronic ballast and very small fixtures but that's costly for me at the moment so I went with a low profile PC FL light on raised feet. The pieces I choose only came out of the back 6 inches of the tank and flair outward from the water's surface. Terrestrial plants can be added to the wood giving a sense of lush growth both in/out of the tank.

Regards,
Tom Barr
 
Interesting chart. Did you really not see any pattern? Look at the w/gallon. Given that all tanks are suited to different lighting conditions I see a distinct pattern... 3 2 1. The w/g ratio decreases as tank size increases.

Tanks 180-650L he uses about 2-3 wpg. 700-1,000L tanks he uses about 2 wpg. Larger than 1,000L he uses ~1wpg.

Keep that up, that's very useful info.

From this you can see you'll need roughly 0.6-0.8wpg or 420-560 watts of light (700G tank right?). If you want an Amano style tank that is...
 
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