Talk to me about Plant lighting

I have a number of tanks with cichlids and low light plants. I'd like to branch out to a few more plants maybe in the low-medium range. I currently run an assortment of lighting (LED single, double bright; a quad fixture running a T5 plant bulb and dual T5 6700 bulbs and an actinic; single T8's grow and or reef brights).

I'm growing things but I'm not sure any of my lighting is giving me the best light for my plants.. I do like LED's. Most of my low light plants seem to be doing OK in the tanks. Just wondering what would be the recommendations for moving up to maybe a low-medium lighted planted tanks? Singlebright, doublebright, or reef bright? T5, T8? Of course I'd much rather simply have to upgrade bulbs than light fixtures so maybe a run down of which lights are best for which planted tank types would be helpful.

I also have two very deep tanks...a 39G and a 90G. I assume lighting needs on those might be different also.

Obviously I'm new to plants so very interested in all this. Next post will be about "feeding" plants

Hi cichlid-gal,

I'll be glad to help you but I'm going to ask you to do some 'homework' first which will answer the majority of your questions (and make you think up a few more!). Aquatic Plant Central (APC) and the Planted Tank (TPT) are the two major forums for planted aquarium enthusiasts. They each have sub-forums on Lighting with 'sticky' threads at the top of the Lighting sub-forums that cover the basics of lighting. Here are links to the sub-forums for APC and TPT.

APC - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

TPT - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Planted tanks don't have to be a lot of work or time consuming, it depends upon the plants I choose. My fish seem to breed better and have much better coloration in a planted aquarium than they ever had in the past.

Talk later!
-Roy

If you have the $$$ for LED then it may be a good investment. With my research unless your going to DYI a fixture there really isnt any LED fixtures specifically designed for planted tanks. Seems you can limp smaller tanks along but if your planting a large tank there isnt anything directly designed for this. All reading for a LED fixture bright enough for a large tank is a 4 foot fixture designed for salt water. This costs $400-$500. Also, store clerks with an extensive consultation begin directing me towards these saltwater fixtures.
All my friends, pet stores, planted enthusiasts I know are still experimenting with LED and are using a mix of T5HO , Compact fluorescents, and LEDs .

I just converted my 140 gallon tank to planted, and started up a 29 gallon planted tank. I'm using mixed lighting- with T5HO im currently running 50/50 bulbs. Im using 10,000k for the intense red spectrum, and blue actinic for the intense blue spectrum. These bulbs also make fish colors POP out like a neon sign. (My cichlids look amazing under this lighting )
Im also using red LED lights for more red spectrum. My plants are going nuts with all this light. Im also injecting CO2 , using dry and liquid fertilizers.

Thanks for your replies...will do homework and then see if I have more questions. Maybe the homework will help me understand the colors thing. I have 2 10K lights that were originally in my quad light but changed them out to the 6700 lights and a grow light for one of the actinics thinking that was the better way to go.

Let me do some reading then I'll be back to pick your brains again.

There is another thread on here where lighting questions were addressed a bit.

Scroll down to Roy's first comment.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

please "enlighten" me on the different florescent bulbs types (pun intended)

Hi -Woody,

Specifically what was it you wanted to know?

6500K?, T5, T8? Lumens? The different types? What does it all mean? haha

65K is the color spectrum of the light. T5, T* is simply the type of fluorescent lamp. The really large lamps were T12, the med T8, the small T5. This is referring to the diameter of the lamp. The T5's are just a more efficient type of light fixture. Lumen is the amount of light that is projected. The higher the lumen, the brighter the light.

Dont want to sound like a jerk when saying this, 'But Google works really well".

If you have questions, look it up. Type in whats the difference between ??? & ???, what are lumen (dictionary.com), everything your heart wants to know about can be found very simply on your computer.

Again like I said earlier, a lot of what you asked was spelled out in this thread: here it is again
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

jrmakawoody wrote:6500K?, T5, T8? Lumens? The different types? What does it all mean? haha

Hi Woody,

I'll be glad to help you but I'm going to ask you to do some 'homework' first which will answer the majority of your questions (and make you think up a few more!). Aquatic Plant Central (APC) and the Planted Tank (TPT) are the two major forums for planted aquarium enthusiasts. They each have sub-forums on Lighting with 'sticky' threads at the top of the Lighting sub-forums that cover the basics of lighting. Here are links to the sub-forums for APC and TPT.

APC - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

TPT - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Planted tanks don't have to be a lot of work or time consuming, it depends upon the plants I choose. My fish seem to breed better and have much better coloration in a planted aquarium than they ever had in the past.

I guess Ecoxotic now has a freshwater planted aquarium LED module. I've only been able to find it on their website, but it doesn't cost zillions of dollars like most LED setups I've seen.

It's under the ecoxotic,com website, under panorama-led-modules. (I can't post links for 7 days).

I'm thinking of giving it a try. Anyone know anything about these or LEDs in general?

Also, I've just joined the forum, but have been reading it for about a month.

Hi Squirmteben,

They may be able to do the job, but they use an external driver (ballast). I like these AH Supply LED Lamp arrays. They run on 120 VAC and come in 17" - 15 watt, 22' - 20 watt; and 22" -26 watt and they are easily retrofit-able to existing strip light fixtures as you can see in this picture.

AH Supply 20 watt 22" LED Lamp Array
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

opinions on actinic bulbs in general?

Well I spent some time last night reading those articles on the plantedtank forum...I'm more lost than before I started. The posts here have been helpful to some extent and that other thread was good but I still confess to being lighting illiterate. Oh well...I'll just have to see which of my existing lighting choices does the best overall.

jrmakawoody wrote:opinions on actinic bulbs in general?

For freshwater? They make the blues pop out on fish like a neon light. I'm using them on my freshwater tanks.

cichlid-gal wrote:Well I spent some time last night reading those articles on the plantedtank forum...I'm more lost than before I started. The posts here have been helpful to some extent and that other thread was good but I still confess to being lighting illiterate. Oh well...I'll just have to see which of my existing lighting choices does the best overall.

Here is the difference in appearance with 5,600/10,000k duel daylight compact fluorescent bulbs (above tank) , and T5HO 50/50 10,000k/blue actinic (bottom tank). The above tank will grow low level light plants and medium level plants once I grow them tall. The above tank is 2 feet deep. The bottom tank is 18 inches deep and the plants grow amazingly quick. I've grown an Anubis 2 inches in less than a month. A 4 inch plant to the top in less than a month. I converted the above tank about 2 weeks ago to look like the bottom using T5ho 50/50 bulbs. I have nearly 2 watts of T5ho per gallon. That's nearly 280 watts. Plus I'm using red LED in the above tank. Plants are growing real well.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]