I need advice on lighting

[Flyingfox]

Hello, this is my first post so please bear with me.

I have a 96ltr 21 Imperial Gallon tank which at the moment is lit by a single 25W aqua glo bulb. I bought the tank from a collegue of mine with the bulb in and I am now thinking it might be a little week.

I am trying to grow plants in it and I have had little success in keeping them alive! The fish are doing fine, I have 3 moonlight guorami, 2 kissing guorami, 3 baby angles and 3 clown loaches oh and 3 glass catfish (these are great).

I have 2 smaller tanks and the plants are strong in these.

any advice would be greatful.

 

[Blinky]

You've got about 1 Watt per gallon, and if you bought the bulb from someone else it may be old, which means there's even less light getting to the plants (fluorescents lose intensity as they age).
The easy answer is you need more light. How much depends on what type of plants you want to keep, and what your budget is.

 

[falcon]

Usually, the smaller the tank, the more light per gallon you need if you want to grow most of the plants. Over my 20g, I have 65w pc lights. Smaller tanks seem to be doing well at around 3wpq.

Again, depends as to what plants you want to grow.

 

[reiverix]

Also, take into account that an imperial gallon is larger than a US gallon. My 75 US gallon tank is only about 62 imperial gallons so wpg can vary.

It makes me think that liters is a better unit to work with but I'm just too used to gallons.

 

[Flyingfox]

Thanks for the replies!

I read somewhere that using another light alongside the main one as a boost is quite a good idea, so I might try that or perhaps a moonlight lamp??

I'm not sure what plants to stock the gourami's like to eat most of them, I have a few in the tank at the moment and I'm reluctant to spend more money on more until I solve the dying problem.

I think I'll go and read the articles!