Too much light?

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br553

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Sep 27, 2006
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I have a 10 gallon planted guppy tank with 2 dwarf lily bulbs and about a dozen aponogeton plants of various varieties. They are all Walmart bulbs. The plants have been in the tank for about 2 and a half months and have filled in really well. The plants are dense enough that it's difficult to gravel vac. I recently changed the lighting from 2x15watt incadescent to 2x13watt compact fluorescent bulbs in soft white 3500K due to heat concerns. I could not find any full spectrum bulbs.

Is this too much light? It's supposedly 12 watts per gallon. I have a Hagen Plant Grow Natural CO2 system, dose once a week with Seachem Flourish and also use Seachem Flourish root tabs. I have not had any algae problems (yet)I keep the water temp at 76-78 degrees.
 
Thank you, that puts my mind at ease. The package said light output was equivalent to a 60 watt incadescent. I'm guessing that is from the lumens rating. So is it wattage that is considered instead of lumens?
 
The wpg rule that you see tossed around is refering to normal fluorescent bulbs and not incandescent bulbs. CF bulbs are more efficient but still works well with the WPG rule.

Lumens is the measurement of light intensity weighted to the human eye. Plants are not like the human eye. You can have a plant bulb that has a very low lumen rating but will be just as good to grow plants as a bulb twice as bright.
 
That light set-up will be good for you, I have the same. I would consider it medium light. You should look into dosing potassium, nitrogen and phosphate as well, considering you have CO2 and hungry plants. (I'm not sure what flourish is, but it's just traces, isn't it?) Aponogetons won't return from dormancy unless they're really well taken care of and can store plenty of nutrients for their dormant period. Then again, this may not be a concern for you if you plan on buying new bulbs when these die back. You will definitely want to dose N,P,K if you add other plants.
 
The Flourish does have only trace amounts of P,N, and K, so as you suggest, I'll have to get some of those suppliments. A couple of my apons may have gone dormant and come back already. They put up several leaves and a number of flower spikes, then they seemed to stop growing. Most of the leaves eventually died off, but they have now replenished their leaves and one has already started to flower again. I'm guessing that's what the dormancy period would look like. Others have flowered numorus times and show no signs of going dormant.

I also went ahead and changed the lighting from what I thought were 3500K (only 2700) to actuall 6500K. From what I have read here, it seems that is the preferred type.
 
I should correct myself. It's two 10 watt screw in compact fluorescent bulbs made by All-Glass. I will have to check when I get home, but I think the lumens per bulb are near 800 which, according to the link above, would put me between low and moderate.
 
If lighting is on the low end, is it possible to make up part of the difference by keeping the lights on for 12 hours as opposed to 8 or 10?
 
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