newbie to plants...lighting question

S

swimfast

AC Members
Mar 3, 2005
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So I had a cheapo hood with the stock bulb, and my plants were browning a bit.

So I went to my lfs, and he told me to buy a flora-glo bulp, rated at 2,500 k. I have a 10gal, so the bulb is 15 watt. Will this do me any better than the bulb I had? He said it would be a waste of money to go higher.

I also got a timer so the plants are getting steady light during the day.

Thanks!
 
what kind of plants do you have?
 
Well, the Watt-per-Gallon rule doesn't apply too well to tiny tanks. You could concieveably crank up your WPG to 4-5 and still be alright.

The timer's a good thing, tho. What exactly did he mean, it'd be a waste to go higher. Higher what?
 
soory...higher kelvin's. I'm not sure what kind of plants they are, but i don't have very many(just giving it a wirl).
 
The color temp of the bulb will make little to no difference. What you may need is more WPG.

What kind of plants do you have? Are you using CO2? Are you dosing ferts? What are your water params (pH, kH, Nitrate, Phosphate)?
 
Well, 15 watts should be okay for low light plants. You should try to identify them, that would help a lot. Low light plants tolerate high light levels better than high light plants tolerate low light levels, so it'd probably be good to try to get another 15 watt on there. I don't have a hood on my tank, just some plexiglass with two 15 watt lights, one is some fancy shmancy ESU reptile fluorescent light, and the other is a $7 walmart fluorescent light. When I opened up the ESU light, it indicated that the bulb should be switched with (insert letters and numbers here), a generic fluorescent bulb. So it doesn't really matter too much whether you pick up a fancy grow light or just a cheap fluorescent, I don't think. The only difference I've noticed is that the cheap fluorescent definately has much more of a yellowish tone to it, which looks nice towards night time.
 
ok...i did some research...

I have hornwort and Anacharis. I don't have a test kit, so i Can't give the water parms. I trimmed the dead hornwort, and part of it was black. I have a lot of diatoms(brown algae), I'm going to get an otto to day to get rid of it. I think the problem is that I don't have enough C02.

I got a timer so that they have a constant 12 hours of light.

thanks for any help, sorry about the long hiatus.
 
Umm, it might be smarter to actually buy a test kit instead of an oto today and then you'll know what is wrong with your water instead of guessing.

Brown (diatom) algae is usually temporary and can be fixed by properly adjusting your water chemistry. Buying an oto only solves the symptom, not the problem. Once you've figured out that you'll need the test kit and fix your water chemistry, the algae will likely go away and you'll need to supply an additional source of food for the oto.

For a planted tank, you'll need (at least) KH, NO3 (Nitrate), pH, and PO4 (phosphate) test kits. These can all be picked up relatively cheaply (and some you may already have or come in common "master" test kits).
 
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