Too much light for a planted 125?

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mikec707

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Jul 9, 2009
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santa rosa
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So I've been really wanting to ad some live plants to my tank for a while now. I have a 125 glass. I don't want to go crazy with the plants yet. Just slowly ad some background an foreground plants. I have no plans now to ad CO2 now. Last year I bought a large 72" light off eBay for pretty cheap it has 2 x 96W PL HO 12,000K fluorescent bulbs an
2 x 96W PL HO actinic blue bulbs
12 LED's. From the lil bit of research I've done it seems like this is to much for a freshwater tank.
What do you guys think do I have to down grade my lights? An if so what is a good light for a 125?



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You don't have to downgrade the lights, but you will have to change out the bulbs to something more suitable for a planted tank...

From my understanding, for a Freshwater planted tank, the light spectrum should be between 6500K - 10,000K...

At 6500K you will get a little less light penetration, but will also have less problems with algae, where as with the 10,000K bulb, you will have a lot of light penetration, but may also find algae will grow more easily, and the higher you go, the more problems you'll have, plus above that number the lights aren't necessarily as useful to plants...

Naturally, what type of plants you ultimately decide to go with also have an effect on the lights you choose, so if you want low light plants, then you may not need to turn on as many lights at one go in comparison to if say you wanted to grow a carpet plant of some sort...
 
Fat Homer said:
You don't have to downgrade the lights, but you will have to change out the bulbs to something more suitable for a planted tank...

From my understanding, for a Freshwater planted tank, the light spectrum should be between 6500K - 10,000K...

At 6500K you will get a little less light penetration, but will also have less problems with algae, where as with the 10,000K bulb, you will have a lot of light penetration, but may also find algae will grow more easily, and the higher you go, the more problems you'll have, plus above that number the lights aren't necessarily as useful to plants...

Naturally, what type of plants you ultimately decide to go with also have an effect on the lights you choose, so if you want low light plants, then you may not need to turn on as many lights at one go in comparison to if say you wanted to grow a carpet plant of some sort...
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I'm glad I don't have to change out the fixture. I was worried that the smaller bulbs would also be smaller plugins for some reason idk. I will start to look for the right bulbs in that 6500-10000k range.


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Have you decided what plants you want to go with though? might be an idea to have a direction first, then to choose the most suitable bulb... since some may prefer certain K ratings over others...
 
Fat Homer said:
Have you decided what plants you want to go with though? might be an idea to have a direction first, then to choose the most suitable bulb... since some may prefer certain K ratings over others...
Click to expand...

I couldn't tell the names off hand I'd have to look them up an post some picks. By the way I read your thread on your new tank I really like what you're doing. Looks great! An those other tanks that you posted pics of a amazing it's hard to believe those are fish tanks.


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^ Thanks for the compliment :)

But Im still only really in the learning stages of high tech planted tanks myself, but as you can tell have been spoiled by lots of research images of some amazing aquascapes which are great to steal ideas from ;)

As for the plants, do post some pics up for sure, as there are a few serious planted tank members here that would most likely know what lights would be best for your needs...


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