newbie lighting question

redbucket

redbucket

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Dec 1, 2004
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By the end of the Christmas season (thanks to my fiancee) it looks like I will have a 55g tank. Very excited! I'd like to plant the tank, but have never done so -- the tank will be from petsmart and comes with the standard hoods w/ flourescent lighting. I realize this is not the best lighting (probably the worst), but are there any plants that would grow under it? (and would keeping a couple standard 40watt desk lamps on during the day at each end of the aquarium help at all?)

With all the other necessities I'll be buying (filters, heaters, decor, and oh some fish after the fishless cycle, etc.) I'd like to keep costs down as much as I can. If upgraded lighting would be needed for any live plants, I'd like just do some nice rock-scaping and driftwood setups with fake plants. Without real plants in such a large tank, how would this effect the need to do water changes? What does everyone suggest as far as frequency / percentage of water changes for planted vs. unplanted tanks?

Thanks for any help / advice for the soon-to-be-new tank!
 
Ypu will need to find plants that grow under less than 1.5 watts of light.

I have anubias, sword 'tropica' and a plant called hygrophilia, which grows like crazy under my cheap hagenn 20 watt bulb (aqualight) (25 gallon tank) also dwarf saggitarius is dong ok, green, slow growing, however. Umm also vasineria might work. I rely on the fish for Co2 production. The tank is quite pretty, but of course higher lighting is the best option for a really showy tank.

Will your tank have double or single bulbs? You can also try the triton growlight, which might help, and maybe a better reflector might be a good investment later on.
 
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If your tank is a standard 48" long 55g and comes with a fixture for a single fluorescent tube I believe you're looking at 40W of light (4ft bulb). At ~0.75WPG you're may have trouble finding plants that will do well.

I don't think incandescent desk lamps will do much, but you might be able to put compact fluorescent bulbs in them to add a little more light to the tank - whether they'd help much or not, I don't know. I imagine you'd lose a lot of the light before it had a chance to get to the tank, since they're not under a reflective hood.

If you can get a fixture that fits two tubes, most low light plants will do fine. 1.5WPG is what I've seen as the recommended minimum for planted tanks.

One good thing about the size of your tank is that it's 48" long - if you want, you can purchase inexpensive shop lights at Home Depot or other home improvement centres that are 48" long - either single or double tube - and really improve the amount of light over your tank for very little money.

I recommend working out the costs first - you may find that upgrading your lighting is actually cheaper than purchasing enough rocks and artificial plants to aquascape a 55g.
 
I just did the math and realize I have 1.25 watt per gallon. I guess that and a good reflector would be minimal for the easiest plants, as I have.
So, with a 55g it means you need minimum 80 watts, 2 x 40 watt bulbs and a good reflector to get 1.45 watt of light per gallon. Check out ebay for lighting. You can get a glass top at most LFS. Its a nice investment. I'd do it too, but I'm going to go bigger and might use my 25g for another purpose. I don't know what yet. Don't you love this hobby? :)
 
Blinky said:
One good thing about the size of your tank is that it's 48" long - if you want, you can purchase inexpensive shop lights at Home Depot or other home improvement centres that are 48" long - either single or double tube - and really improve the amount of light over your tank for very little money.
Click to expand...
That's what we did on our 55 & 75. Pick up a dual light setup for about $10 and mount it under your canopy. Use a couple of small pieces of wood for a spacer between light & canopy. Works like a charm.
 
Swimfins said:
I just did the math and realize I have 1.25 watt per gallon. I guess that and a good reflector would be minimal for the easiest plants, as I have.
Don't you love this hobby? :)
Click to expand...

If you have a 25g tank and 20W of light, your plants are doing okay with 0.8WPG Swimfins - looks like my estimate of 1.5WPG may be high (though it's still what I'd recommend to be safe)
And yes, I do love it - this hobby ROCKS! :D
 
Swimfins said:
I'm getting an 86.4 gallon tank, I went to look at shoplights today at home depot. The best I could find is 4 x 20 watt bulbs, or 2 x 40 watt, 48" long.
This doesn't seem to be enough light at all. But for a 55g tank it could work.
Click to expand...

How about two shoplights, so there are four 40W 48" tubes? That would give you ~1.8WPG - not bad at all.
 
Well, I was never good at math.....gee what do I know lol. so in my 25g, I've got 0.8 watts? D'oh!!!

It looks nice, considering......

Ya mean 2 shop lights? I was thinking of laying down 323 bucks at J$L Aquatics for a 220 watt compact with legs that you attatch to keep it above the aquarium. Now how many watts would it give me per g. if mmy tank is 86.4g. 2.5? I tink. :)

PS, this tank is going in the living room, and 2 shoplights would look weird wouldn't it?
 
Not if you're into DIY and want to build a canopy; you could install shop lights inside - it would look great from the outside.
There are plans online (try Googling stuff like 'DIY aquarium canopy') for full canopies. There's some cost and work involved, but still I think you could do it for less than that light costs...
How wide is the tank (front to back)? I'm guessing it's 24", so you'd have enough room for quite a few tubes (maybe 6?) If you're really into doing it yourself, you could build the hood with built-in fluorescent lighting - install ballasts, end caps, the wiring etc. yourself - there are plans online and all the parts are available at Home Depot, but it would be quite a bit of work.

The 220W fixture would give you ~2.5WPG but if it's PC the light output is actually more than standard bulbs (T12s or T8s), which I understand are the lights the WPG rule was designed around. Shop lights usually fit T12 bulbs, so the 1.8WPG you'd get with 4 x 40W bulbs really would be 1.8WPG, whereas the PC fixture might give you something comparable to 3WPG.

Is your head spinning yet? :D
 
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