Lights!

K

kazkirkpatrick

AC Members
Feb 8, 2004
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Norfolk, VA
im1.shutterfly.com
Hi, Im a newbie!

Here is my lighting question.
I have a 12x12x24(h) tank that has some easy growing plants in it. The plants grow well if they can make it pass a couple inches in height to get closer to the light

Anacharis: The alien taking over my tank. Make it stop
Bacopa: Holding on for its dear life.
Java Fern: Quite happy. Its on a log about 1 ft up the tank and is getting plenty light.
What Im guessing is Vallisneria, small variety. Say 3 inches max. Struggling because its so low to the ground and not getting light
2 kinds of sword, one short one with broad leaves thats doing ok and one with leaves the height of the tank, longer thinner and doing GREAT.

THe problem isnt getting the plants to grow, its getting them to grow on the floor. down there they look all thin and pathetic (bacopa and vall). I need stronger lights! But what I can stick in there? Im poor as the dirt itself (medical school) but I want beautiful plants! It needs to be cheap, not to bulky (not to much space under the hood, strong (the lights are struggling with that 2 ft of water) and did I say cheap? Yeah, cheap!

THAAAAANK you for your help!
Karen
 
Cheap lighting

Your tank is very tall and narrow. Maybe you could put a 24" bulb on each SIDE of the tank to provide light to the plants. If they get light from the sides they won't try to grow up towards the top light so much, and the lower leaves will still get alot more light.

Bacopa ALWAYS grows slowly. They're like the stem plant version of anubias for me. That's nice in that you don't need to trim them often at all, but they tend to get swamped by their neighbors. I have some kind of long leaved bacopa and it's put on 4 leaf nodes in the time my anacharis has put on 2ft.
 
How much light are you supplying now, and what kind of light?
How long has the tank been set up?

Len
 
The tank has been set up for about a year.

Lights: What I could scrounge together from my older, smaller tanks:
2 strip lights from 2 20 gallon tanks
3 60 W 'daylight' halogen spot lights.

I tried giving them light through the side, but the retarded fish did the whole side swim thing. Im not sure thats particularly healthy for them!
 
Plants will grow fuller and bushier and less leggy with more light penetration(from the top).
That is quite a distance for light to penetrate. You can cut down on the distance from the top by adding more substrate and/or aqua-scaping the tank so that more light needy plants are planted closer to the surface(in higher spots) and less needy in the deeper areas.
CF lighting penetrates best, but unfortunately is more expensive.

Len
 
I added a picture of my tank in my profile. From the angle that I took it, it looks like Im complaining about nothing and there is plenty plants, but the ground really is sparse and pathetic looking. The lights look REALLY bright because I took the picture on the time delayed mode so I wouldnt have to use the flash. its a DEEP tank.

Painfully So.
 
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