Lighting Question

[PuffLuv]

Originally Posted by Myka

He would be struggling with algae if he used 2xT5HO without injecting CO2.

Maybe...I don't. Mine is lightly-moderately planted with lots of fish and weekly water changes. I think at first when I switched to T5HO's I had an algae bloom, but after a month or two, it balanced out. In addition, there's a flourite base and I add fertilizer. If you have faster growing plants that can out-compete the algae for nutrients, using better lights, you should be okay(I used to have some Val. that I would trim a shopping bag full every week or two).

Originally Posted by Sphelps

6W per gallon sounds like a lot for any plant, I use that much for my reef tank and it uses higher K bulbs than typical planted tanks and contains SPS corals.

It does sound like a lot, however if you've ever tried to keep cabomba or microswords with <4W/gal., I think you would be surprised. Also, Agranized's tank is 30" high, in my opinion, you would need higher intensity lighting to have plants thrive(strong growth), not just survive.

By all means Agranized, try growing some plants with low output lights, but unless its just anubias or something, but from my experience, you might be growing more algae than anything. You can always upgrade your lighting if you experience what I have in the past. I'd also recommend (not required by what your looking for)a little CO2 (20-30ppm), you could try a DIY'er, super cheap and easy, but not too reliable, or pickup a used CO2 reg., solenoid, bubblecounter, diffuser, cylinder from someone on the site. All that being said, I have seen some low-light tanks with java, crypt and val. that seemed to do very well at <2W/gal. its just the tanks weren't 30" tall. Again, just my $0.02.