the right lighting

[boost.puppy]

Hi guys, I would love to aquascape my new tank, but I am unsure of which lighting to use, so I have taken a photo of my current lighting & would like some feedback on how I can improve it!

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t176/kurramiah/20080125_IMG_0085.jpg

It's apparently T5 & T8 (which I don't know what that means!)
If you can't see (sorry bad pic, I had my haloids on at the same time) it's made by reef octopus. My tank is an ex marine 3x2x2' tank with weir & sump, One globe is blue & the other white. I would eventually like to have harder to keep plants which require more lighting, do I need to upgrade? or is the current setting sufficient? (I'm not having the haloids, they are moving to the 6foot reef tank.)

any feedback would be appreciated,
Sarah

[revkev]

You need 2 Hagen Life Glo II T5 39w @29.95 from ASA
Closely mimics mid-day sun, accurate colour rendering for a natural looking aquarium. Intense, powerful illumination will effectively penetrate deep aquariums. Effectively stimulates photosynthetic process in plants, corals and invertebrates
http://www.aquariumsuppliesaustralia.com.au/store/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=2605

[ILLUSN]

mate thats a 2x39w T5HO fixture with individual gulwing reflectoers, that is as good as lighting gets without going to metal halides!

you'd want to fit it out with 2x growlux tubes or something similar with strong red peaks, i believe the lifeglos peak in the green which isn't great for aquatic plants.

your actinic (blue) is useless for plants but your white (10000k) is ok for red plants as it has a strong blue peak

[fishgeek]

the colour of light has been long debated as far as plant growth, yes they do use light of particular spectrums , though some studies are showing no particular benefit from these pinkish lamp than from others

what i would suggest is any lamp you can readily source
i like the look of daylight so choose lamps with a kelvin rating of approx 5000-7000
a high Colour Rendering Index means that the plants colours in the tank will show more truly so this can be useful too

For higher light loving plants then anything above 2 watts per gallon of water (that you like the look of) will be sufficient

as the others have said High Output T5's are great (T5 and T8 are do o with the diameter of the lamp ie 5/8ths of an inch is T5 etc)
reflectors increase downward and therefore utilised light

power compacts are even more efficient than HO T5's
all these improvements in efficiency have really messed up the old rule of thumb of 1-3 wpg as that is based on energy consumption not light output , more efficient bulbs therefore use less energy and produce more light meaning such high wpg values are not necessarily needed


andrew

[fish_r]

in my T5 fixtures i use the Aquamedic 5000k planta tubes and 10,000k ocean white tubes "2 of each" and "1 of each" in different fittings i find this gives a great colour combination to the fish and great plant growth.
i also see Jewel tanks now have a T5 tubes available which are 6800k and will be trying these out as soon as i can get some.

i find the growlux tubes too pink and not bright enough and if u choose them i would go for 1 x growlux and 1 x 10,000k tube to brighten things up a bit...

also bear in mind if u go over 2wpg u really need to run Co2 and have a good ferts routine or u will get algae city...

[boost.puppy]

wow.. So really I only need to change my blue globe because that's not really suitable?

I have a UV sterillizer on the wish list too...

I am currently fertilizing twice a week with seachem flourish & I am hoping to get seachem excel shortly.

I figured It might be a good set-up as it's a 6month old reef tank which has rare corals and dads pretty full-on with his marine tanks, but I just wasn't sure of what was needed to convert it to tropical.
Thnaks for clarifying guys!

I would eventually like to have harder to grow plants, get a good fertilizer substrate & UV sterillizer!