Lighting 40B

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FreshwaterHawaii

Gambusia
MFK Member
Apr 1, 2011
203
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Hawaii
I have all low light plants at the moment, but wanted to get some medium light plants. I'm not sure if my lighting would be sufficient. I have (2) light fixtures on my tank. Both are 36 inch t5NO's with 2 6700k bulbs each. So that is a total of 4 bulbs at 21watts each bulb. What kind of lighting is this? (low, medium, high)

Thank you
 
Ok cool, now if it were my tank, I'd go with 2x6700k bulbs in the front fixture, and use 2x5000k bulbs for the rear fixture. The reason is simple, afternoon sunlight after 3pm is between 3500k and 5500k so the 5000k bulbs would work better for the afternoon. I would plug each fixture into it's own digital timer and go with this light schedule....

2x6700 come on at 9am and turn off at 1pm
2x5000 come on at 12noon and turn off at 4pm

Because the two fixtures overlap for an hour from 12noon to 1pm, this will give your tank that mid day light burst when it's really sunny out and would benefit the plants to have that 1 hour light burst. I'm sure someone will come by and debate this theory but I've found it to work great in my tanks. So the 2x6700k bulbs will give you that early day light, with the 1 hour light burst representing the mid day, and the 2x5000k giving your plants that afternoon lighting.

Although your fixtures are T5NO it will put you into the medium lighting range because they are sitting right on top of the tank.
 
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