What do you use for lighting?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Grinch said:
We use current LEDs in our fish room as our standard lighting. Some are truelumen pro strips (screw mounted above the tank) and some are the base satellite freshwater lights. These are both simple general purpose freshwater lights. Personally, I like them mainly because of the price point and the ability to daisy chain them with ease. With as many tanks as we have, the PLUS lights are too expensive for general purpose lighting, though we do have one PLUS fixture and it's features are fun.

Two of the base lights on a standard shallow tank (e.g. 20L, 33L) will grow low light plants like Anubias and floating plants like foxtail or duckweed just fine. One light will maintain these plants in these shallow tanks. Single strips will grow algae no problem even in a deeper tank (24 inches).

We also have a Finnex monster ray that was a xmas present... this light is nice over fish with lots of reds. I imagine over a red bichir tank it would make the color of the substrate pop pop pop! If you are into that LOL

We have a current orbit marine in the mail right now... we've heard it's nice over fish with a lot of blues, so we're going to give that a try... and if we like it, that's one less pro strip we have to buy for the 5gallon rack we've been working on.

Our bichirs do not appreciate the high light either, but they are provided with plenty of hiding spots to compensate. The base-lights are a single row of LEDs, which provides close to full bottom coverage when the light is mounted close to the top of the tank, but that means there are lots of shadows near the surface, so there are plenty of shady spots to retreat to in all of our tanks.
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Thats one fish room you got there:)
 
clm08k said:
your polys and my polys need to have a poly party! I'm gonna buy some egg crate this weekend. Still need to figure out how to elevate it. What is a screw mount?
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Screw mount means that it comes with a bracket that needs to be attached to something with screws or bolts... like a wood canopy or in our case, the underside of the row of tanks above. This is different than the more common brackets that hug or attach to the tank rim.

Polyaddict86 said:
Thats one fish room you got there:)
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Yup, just one fish room. :D

That's a pic from a few months ago... more tanks now... see link in sig.
 
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I always wanted to try one of those skylight tubes to the top of the tank. Seems like a cool and free way to light a big tank. After initial cost I mean.
 
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