planted tank lighting

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Thelatinofishlover

Thelatinofishlover

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Oct 17, 2012
1,425
6
53
Mexico City
hey guys so im planning to start a nice heavy planted tank for a baby rhom, but i have a question on lighting, i have 2 lights that are 40w
20,000k, my friend who gave them to me had them in his 100 gallon reef, now i want to know if these will work for a 75 gallon heavy planted tank?
 
^ actually for a Freshwater planted tank, anything bulb between 6500K - 10,000K will work...

To the OP, just keep away from anything over the 10,000K light spectrum or else all you will be doing is promoting a crap load of a algae with little to no benefit to your plants... so in other words, the current bulbs you have will NOT be suitable for a freshwater planted tank...

Also, just curious, what type of bulbs are they? is it T5, T5HO or T8 Bulbs? since depending if they are T5 / T8 / MH etc, that can also effect the plants to a certain extent...
 
im very limmited on the kind of bulbs i can get, planted tanks in Mexico arent the most popular, i acctually have to get everything shipped to me from Tijuana lol, anyways i belive they are T8 bulbs, as that they only kind of bulbs they sell here :/
 
Then depending if they are normal shop lights or special aquarium lights, aim for 6500 for more warmer tones and 10,000K at the highest end for more white look...


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Fat Homer said:
^ actually for a Freshwater planted tank, anything bulb between 6500K - 10,000K will work...

To the OP, just keep away from anything over the 10,000K light spectrum or else all you will be doing is promoting a crap load of a algae with little to no benefit to your plants... so in other words, the current bulbs you have will NOT be suitable for a freshwater planted tank...
Click to expand...

What he said.... ;)

I'm figuring this out myself. I have a 12,000k on my planted tank, and there is definitely more algae than I'd like. I think I found a good amount of hours to leave the light on each day but still a bit of algae. I've been told the 6700k output is the way to go too. Good luck!
 
Yeah, K rating can be a little tricky, since it depends on what your plant need... I personally have heard o a lot of mixes of bulbs, but found personally using 2x 6700K T5-HO with 2x 10,000K T5-HO bulbs works well for me...

Although next time will be switching 10,000K bulbs for 8000K ones :)


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okay so i've been searching for bulb and the closest thing i can come up with is Biopro t8 40w actinic 50/50 10,000k....and i have no clue on what that means!
 
actinic if i'm not mistaken is normally used for Marine Reef tanks, which comes with a higher K rating, normally 12,000K and up, which is basically not suitable for a freshwater tank unless you want a lot of algae...

When you said you were searching for bulbs, are you looking at just the bulbs or the bulbs + the ballast? coz if you are looking at bulbs alone, then T8's should come in a very wide variety of K ratings, so maybe try hitting up some of the online stores to see if they will ship to your area?
 
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