Lighting advice - brand new to plants and things

[lmsmith]

I've had fish for years, but have never really had a beautiful planted tank, despite loving them.

I'm planning on setting up a small tank for dwarf puffers and putting in some pretty plants for them. The tank is 60l and currently has 1x 15w T8 tube. I was thinking of putting in 4 x T5s.

I'd like to put some java fern and ambulia and....actually, those are the only plants I know.

So, questions:

• am I going to have too much light and blind my poor fish and kill my plants?
  
• are these plants hard to keep?
  
• what other plants might be suitable that are available here? The tank will be south-east Asia themed, ph around 6 - 6.5. Are any pretty red plants suitable for this biotope?
  
• what substrate is best for these sorts of plants?

Thanks in advance

[Ira]

I've had fish for years, but have never really had a beautiful planted tank, despite loving them.

I'm planning on setting up a small tank for dwarf puffers and putting in some pretty plants for them. The tank is 60l and currently has 1x 15w T8 tube. I was thinking of putting in 4 x T5s.

I'd like to put some java fern and ambulia and....actually, those are the only plants I know.

So, questions:

• am I going to have too much light and blind my poor fish and kill my plants?

Thanks in advance

I seriously doubt it. It's quite difficult to have too much light, so it causes damage. I don't know what the specs on the lights you're thinking of are, but average sunlight in places like the amazon is around 4-5 kw/square meter.

So the energy of sunlight falling on your tank would be about 855 watts, about 43% of that is visible light being 368 watts.

To match that amount of visible light, assuming perfect reflectors you'd need a light setup that produces 368 watts of actual light. A really GOOD T5 setup produces about 100 lumens/watt. 100% efficiency is 683 giving it, rounded a 15% efficiency.

That means to produce the 368 watts of actual light needed to match the sun you'd need 2453 watts of T5s with very good reflectors.

And that's over just a tiny little 60 liter tank.

[lmsmith]

I seriously doubt it. It's quite difficult to have too much light, so it causes damage. I don't know what the specs on the lights you're thinking of are, but average sunlight in places like the amazon is around 4-5 kw/square meter.

So the energy of sunlight falling on your tank would be about 855 watts, about 43% of that is visible light being 368 watts.

To match that amount of visible light, assuming perfect reflectors you'd need a light setup that produces 368 watts of actual light. A really GOOD T5 setup produces about 100 lumens/watt. 100% efficiency is 683 giving it, rounded a 15% efficiency.

That means to produce the 368 watts of actual light needed to match the sun you'd need 2453 watts of T5s with very good reflectors.

And that's over just a tiny little 60 liter tank.

So in conclusion, 4* T5s will be A-OK?

Is there a special colour of light or something I need? I vaguely remember nms and kelvins and blue and white and yellow and chlorophyll from 7th form biology

[Zev]

I have a 400mm cube with a 70w Metal Halide lamp over it for my three rather spoilt freshwater puffers and four Otocinclus. Plants are Valisneria, Anubias, Hemianthus micranthemoides, Echinodorus leopard and Eleocharis acicularis.

Dose with 5ml Flourish Excel daily.

The Val is growing over the surface and obscures some of the light around the edges of the tank, and the puffers do not appear to need sunglasses when in the open water in the middle.

You 60w of T5s should be fine, your Ambulia will grow reddish at the tips with high light levels and the java fern should be fine. Algae may be a problem if you do not have enough fast growing plants to suck up the nutrients and outcompete the algae for them.

Ferts/C02 balance with high lights can be a tricky thing to get right - my tank can turn into an algae forest in two days if neglected :-?

[antwan]

Post a photo of your tank Zev!

[Joe]

Are you talking about T5HO or T5NO? Also what wattage bulbs are you thinking of using?

[lmsmith]

I have a 400mm cube with a 70w Metal Halide lamp over it for my three rather spoilt freshwater puffers and four Otocinclus. Plants are Valisneria, Anubias, Hemianthus micranthemoides, Echinodorus leopard and Eleocharis acicularis.

Dose with 5ml Flourish Excel daily.

The Val is growing over the surface and obscures some of the light around the edges of the tank, and the puffers do not appear to need sunglasses when in the open water in the middle.

You 60w of T5s should be fine, your Ambulia will grow reddish at the tips with high light levels and the java fern should be fine. Algae may be a problem if you do not have enough fast growing plants to suck up the nutrients and outcompete the algae for them.

Ferts/C02 balance with high lights can be a tricky thing to get right - my tank can turn into an algae forest in two days if neglected :-?

I was going to put a few ottos in too to hopefully keep any algae problem under control. I'm a bit worried about ferts, but thinking of wiring all the lights on separate switches so I can reducing lighting if necessary.

Are you talking about T5HO or T5NO? Also what wattage bulbs are you thinking of using?

I didn't know there was a difference What *is* the difference? Wattage will depend on what size fits in the light hood I have.

[Joe]

T5HO = T5 high output (used for aquariums).

T5NO = T5 normal output (used for industrial and home lighting applications).

What are the dimensions of your tank?

The smallest T5HO tubes come in 24w 55cm (standard) and 24w 43cm (Juwel, and some Arcadia, JBL and Dennerle tubes).

I don't know much about T5NO though.

[Zev]

Post a photo of your tank Zev!

Err... maybe on the weekend when I have tidied it up Twan... :nilly:

The ottos aren't able to deal with the sort of algae that erupts in my tank!