Ya, my first tank forum. I've been spying almost every tank forum out there for about two years. I've only had tanks for about that long and we, my wife and I, have come along way. I did a 20 gal planted tank with 8 cherry barbs in it about a year ago. Within 6 months algae had taken over but we now had 30 cherry barbs. I was out of the country for this time and it's a long story but I decided to take a 55 gal I had laying around and give a live planted tank another shot and make it my cherry barb tank.
I have roughly 20 cherry barbs, 2 lamp eyed tetras, a guarmi, and a blind albino fish (pacu we think another long story). Anyway I was looking at doing a heavily planted tank and be able to have a wide variety of plant options. I was going to go with the 3wpg CO2 injection method until I saw some of the tanks in this forum. So my problem right now is I'm in search of lights for my 55 gal tank. Right now I have 2x15W T8 67,000k lights on top and a 20W CFL daylight around 5000k'ish bulb in a fixture next to the tank. The CFL is a blind hope to keep the plants alive until I get my lights in order.
My first question is how dire is this situation? I've only had the plants a week and they are still growing however I'm not sure if thats just from being healthy before and their running on their reserves.
Second question is what would be better if I don't go the CO2 injection route, 2xT8 32W or 2xT12 40W fixtures? I've seen in multiple places that T8s put out more light per watt but how do these setups compare in light output in terms of human brightness, and plant (photosynthesis) us fullness? Obviously I would be using 6700K or ware about bulbs in ether setup so please assume same bulb type manufacture just T8(new kind) vs T12. I ask because T8's will become more and more common but I'm not sure if they have the options available T12 do as far as color temp brightness ect. I am also open to other options but please explain why you suggest what you suggest if possible.
I would like to do a pressurized co2 system with AHsupply lights although something came up suddenly and I may not be able to afford that many lights or even maintain such an unstable system.
More of me rambling and not necessary for the question but I'm going to ramble anyway(fare warning )
rant
I was AMAZED to see some of the beautifully planted tanks done with less than 1 WPG I have seen on this site, ya yours Byron. Not that I put a whole lot into that anyway and quite frankly it's driving me nuts. Wattage is the amount the light uses to operate. Plants use what the light puts out so really thats what the rule of thumb is? Not to be rude but to someone as simple minded as I am it seams like you should be going by the output. I mean their are plenty of cars that suck in 2 liters of 92 octane fuel into the engine. Some can rocket a car down the strip at 100+ MPH and others can barley get the car to 90MPH at all. I realize everything else being equal color/spectrum/relative intensity that a higher wattage bulb will put out more light but honestly the more I learn about lights the less I feel I know.
/rant
Ok as for the specifics of aquarium, also take not while I'd like to keep these plants alive their not necessarily the only ones I'll have I just got these by chance.
55gal standard size I think been established for about 3 months in addition to 30 days cycling and a week of the canary fish.. ie the ugly fish that wont die.. gotta love the little pink fella.
48"x12"x21"
Fish: 20 cherry barbs, 2 lamp eyed tetras, a guarmi, and a blind albino fish(Pacu?) we just call it ugly fish that never dies
Plants: money wart, water sprite, anachiris i think, and horn wart. The floating money wart is to get them to root seems to be working.
current lighting: sad but true 2x15W T8's full spectrum, and not sure if this counts but 20W CFL full spectrum in a lamp stand beside it. See photo.
Any help would be greatly appreciated so I can act soon and not have a bunch of decaying plants in my new'ish tank. And can anyone identify the no eyed fish? He is the big pink one in the foreground right of center, we got him free with a free 30 gal tank. Ugly but been with us since fish tank day 1 ...
I have roughly 20 cherry barbs, 2 lamp eyed tetras, a guarmi, and a blind albino fish (pacu we think another long story). Anyway I was looking at doing a heavily planted tank and be able to have a wide variety of plant options. I was going to go with the 3wpg CO2 injection method until I saw some of the tanks in this forum. So my problem right now is I'm in search of lights for my 55 gal tank. Right now I have 2x15W T8 67,000k lights on top and a 20W CFL daylight around 5000k'ish bulb in a fixture next to the tank. The CFL is a blind hope to keep the plants alive until I get my lights in order.
My first question is how dire is this situation? I've only had the plants a week and they are still growing however I'm not sure if thats just from being healthy before and their running on their reserves.
Second question is what would be better if I don't go the CO2 injection route, 2xT8 32W or 2xT12 40W fixtures? I've seen in multiple places that T8s put out more light per watt but how do these setups compare in light output in terms of human brightness, and plant (photosynthesis) us fullness? Obviously I would be using 6700K or ware about bulbs in ether setup so please assume same bulb type manufacture just T8(new kind) vs T12. I ask because T8's will become more and more common but I'm not sure if they have the options available T12 do as far as color temp brightness ect. I am also open to other options but please explain why you suggest what you suggest if possible.
I would like to do a pressurized co2 system with AHsupply lights although something came up suddenly and I may not be able to afford that many lights or even maintain such an unstable system.
More of me rambling and not necessary for the question but I'm going to ramble anyway(fare warning )
rant
I was AMAZED to see some of the beautifully planted tanks done with less than 1 WPG I have seen on this site, ya yours Byron. Not that I put a whole lot into that anyway and quite frankly it's driving me nuts. Wattage is the amount the light uses to operate. Plants use what the light puts out so really thats what the rule of thumb is? Not to be rude but to someone as simple minded as I am it seams like you should be going by the output. I mean their are plenty of cars that suck in 2 liters of 92 octane fuel into the engine. Some can rocket a car down the strip at 100+ MPH and others can barley get the car to 90MPH at all. I realize everything else being equal color/spectrum/relative intensity that a higher wattage bulb will put out more light but honestly the more I learn about lights the less I feel I know.
/rant
Ok as for the specifics of aquarium, also take not while I'd like to keep these plants alive their not necessarily the only ones I'll have I just got these by chance.
55gal standard size I think been established for about 3 months in addition to 30 days cycling and a week of the canary fish.. ie the ugly fish that wont die.. gotta love the little pink fella.
48"x12"x21"
Fish: 20 cherry barbs, 2 lamp eyed tetras, a guarmi, and a blind albino fish(Pacu?) we just call it ugly fish that never dies
Plants: money wart, water sprite, anachiris i think, and horn wart. The floating money wart is to get them to root seems to be working.
current lighting: sad but true 2x15W T8's full spectrum, and not sure if this counts but 20W CFL full spectrum in a lamp stand beside it. See photo.
Any help would be greatly appreciated so I can act soon and not have a bunch of decaying plants in my new'ish tank. And can anyone identify the no eyed fish? He is the big pink one in the foreground right of center, we got him free with a free 30 gal tank. Ugly but been with us since fish tank day 1 ...