Spectrum vs Wattage

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MRE

MRE

Plecostomus
MFK Member
Oct 19, 2008
134
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Parrish, FL
I am totally new to doing a planted tank and I wanted to know if the light spectrum offered by a light is really important vs just outputting more light to meet the needs of the plant. Certain bulbs are advertised for having a wider spectrum that is supposed to be superior for planted tanks like the T8 I picked up on the cheap at a lfs that was going out of business. Am I better off using the T8 for now even if it is a slightly smaller wattage than the other bulb I had in there before or will the plants benefit more just having more light overall.
 
Planted tanks are all about balance, too much light and not enough nutrients the plants suffer...

Too little light too many nutrients can cause algae...

As for lights, imo, T5-HO for planted tanks is best just cause it doesnt limit what you can grow as much since it offers more energy for the same wattage bulbs as a T8 of the same size...

Although using a T8 will work, but will ultimately be a lot trickier and may take a much longer time to get the plants to fill out...




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Watts means nothing. Lighting is based off of PAR, which tbh I'm not good enough at math to explain.

Spectrum is important because you generally want under 10K. Otherwise you promote algae growth since the plants do not utilize that light color.

T8's will give you very low lighting, which is okay for certain kinds of tanks but you then need to watch what kind of plants you get since not all plants do well with that kind of lighting.
T5's come in HO and NO, and HO is going to give you the highest amount of lighting worth using (generally). However, the height of your tank and how far you put the light above the substrate does come into play. The problem with using t5HO on some tanks is that it will put them in the high light category, and tanks in that class will ALWAYS need injected co2 in order to be maintained healthily and without a ton of algae. These tanks also require high maintenance and almost weekly trimming based upon what kind of plants you decide to use.
 
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