Hi

I have a four foot tank and at present one 30 watt daylightstar Sylvania tube as lighting. I have had a build up of brown algae in a short time and wondered if I should increase the lighting I have for the size tank I have. Could someone please let me know what is the suggested wattage of light that should be used for a 122 cm (four foot tank). The above tube was pretty expensive and it is meant to block out UV thus reducing algae problems and basically show up the colours of the fish.

Your tank is about the same as mine which is 115 cms.

UNfortunatly my 'dodgy size' means i cant run 4 foot tubes so i run 6x 30W ( or 3ft tubes) thats 180W over a tank that is about 250l

If i had a 122cm tank i would run atleast 4x fourfoots and possibley even 6 but adjust the time they where on (photo period) - but thats just my thoughts to get my plants to grow!

Hiya

I have a four foot tank and use only two 30watt lamps. It means that I can't grow plants that require heaps of light but there is a good variety of lower light growing plants. I have 1 bn and one golden algae eater and I find I don't have too much trouble with algae, do you have many algae eaters in your tank?

Hi thanks for the replies so far.

I do not have any algae eaters, my tank is simple it has a bubble wall and it holds 3 large fancy goldfish and a ryukin. (not sure of the spelling sorry).

My planted 4ft tank has 4, 4ft daylight (or bright white) tubes

Hi

I went to the local petshop and brought a moonlight tube so I now have a daylightstar and a moonlight tube. The mooon light tube has a pretty blue hue to it that really does show up the blue in one of my fish. Total now is 30w x 2. Thought I might swop the daylightstar and just have two moonlight tubes but from what I see two of them wouldn't be bright enough. The moonlight tube in itself was somewhat costly I must say.

Your moneys better spend on good reflectors if you dont have any at the moment.

Hi Radu,

forgot to make one point... what coloyur is your sand/gravel?

White or light coloured gravel reflects alot of light straight into your eyes, making the fish look far less colourful.

Hi

Sorry I don't know exactly what are reflectors? is it something to do with the foil like covering that is on the top part of a lighthood?

Hi

Sorry I don't know exactly what are reflectors? is it something to do with the foil like covering that is on the top part of a lighthood?

Long shiney metal that clips onto the tube, made a big difference for me and my fitting already had some metal on the top of it.