Lighting a little tank

[eaolson]

I don't think I'm going to put my 29 gal tank up right now, since the apartment I just moved into doesn't really have a good place for it and I'm not going to be here too long. So I was thinking of getting one of those little desktop aquariums and putting some RCS in it.

Is it reasonable to try to do plants in one of those? The 6 gal that Tetra makes has 13 watts over it. I think the Eclipse 6 only has 8 watts. I know the watts/gal rule breaks down for these small sizes, but I don't know if it's at all reasonable to try to put even low light plants in one of these.

 

[Paladinpress]

One thing you can do with smaller tanks is put them on a kitchen counter and then mount the perfect light for your system to the underside of the upper cabinet. I setup a 10g like that once with a 40w incandescent lamp shining on it from above. If you can do without a hood, you can get creative and use just about anything as a light source. Some of the smaller planted tanks I have seen on AC seem to be lit with something above the tank.

 

[Ozymandias]

for my 5.5 tank i use a hampton bay light it's about 27watts that i can grow quite a bit with it.

 

[tanker]

With only a watt+ per gal you can still grow some plants (just put the tank in a bright area--but never in direct sunlight). You can still grow Anubia, java fern, some crypts, ect.

 

[mellowvision]

13 watts on a tiny tank will grow dwarf sag or java fern... you shouldn't have a problem. I like hanging lamps over small tanks myself, but the integrated units are attractive.