okay i went to home depot on my lunch break and got some stuff. two 2x48" 40wt shop lights (15$) and 2 aquarium bulbs (20$) and 2 sun light bulbs (12$) and two hinges (3$) for the hood im going to build tonight. that gives me 160watts for the tank. that should be way better!
what are my lighting options?
- Thread starter canufeelme
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canufeelme said:
That will be much better. With that much of an increase in lighting you may end up getting a bad algae outbreak. You should probably run them in stages. One set on for a couple of hours, Then both for a few hours, then one set again. You'll eventually figure out how much light you can get away with without algae taking over. Get yourself a coule of timers and you'll be fine.
canufeelme said:
yep thats right. NOT AT ALL. and if you're using a HOB powerfilter i'd raise the water level high enough so that there is minimal splashing as that drives away co2 as well.
With all that new lighting you may consider injecting co2 as well. Theres a cheap DIY way.
http://www.qsl.net/w2wdx/aquaria/diyco2.html
tai95 said:
thanks for the tip......the bad thing is i didnt read this til now and i turned the lights on before i left for work....hope i dont come home to algae take over! how does light affect algae?
Onikun said:
well that sucks...the bubbles are cool! hahaha. ive been reading around for a diy co2 set up. thanks for that link.
160 watts over a 55 gallon tank comes to nearly 3 watts per gallon. At that lighting level, you're going to need to inject CO2 and start a regular fertilizing dosing regimen, or you're going to have serious algae problems. I suggest either cutting your lighting back to around 2 watts per gallon, or going over to the Aquatic Plants forum and start reading up on how to manage a high-light, high-tech planted tank.
artemis said:
im reading up on that now! i may just take one bulb out..that puts me to a lil over 2wpg
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canufeelme said:
I'm not so sure about that. It really depends on your fishload. When your lights go out, your water will be saturated with oxygen, but both plants *and* fish will consume it starting at the beginning of the dark cycle until lights go on again. If your fish are gasping in the morning, it means they depleted the oxygen and cannot last the night. A solution to this is to run a bubble wand some time in the middle of the night, until the lights go on to help get oxygen in the water. This will gas out CO2 as well, but there's no reason to have it on at night anyway. Be sure to have a safe kH level to minimize pH swings.
If CO2 production is very high and is not shut off at night, it will gas off and blanket the surface of the water, impeding surface O2 exchange. In this case, it's recommended to bubble once the lights go off. This wouldn't be a problem with DIY CO2, since you probably won't produce that much gas.. and if you have do pressurized co2, then you'd probably have it shut off via solenoid/timer anyway.
