GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

28-07-2005, 08:57 AM

wrote:
I've been out of the hobby for over a decade but I ended up with a
great deal on a huge acrylic tank (79.5x18.25x24) that I just couldn't
pass up. However, I've never dealt with an acrylic tank before and
noticed that there are two "holes" cut out of the top piece for
lighting hoods (I'm assuming). These are 23x7. I am planning on setting
up a planted aquarium in this tank and need a lot of advice/help on
selecting the proper lighting. Is it even possible to provide enough
lighting using these two openings for a planted tank? If so, does
anyone have any suggestions on what I should get? Is there a pre-made
kit that would fit my needs? I've read in a couple of sites that I
should be using a combination of compact flourescent and metal halide.
Is this accurate? I'm not very knowledgeable about lighting and would
appreciate any help/advice anyone can give.

Thanks!
K Stringer

Hi,

If you have the money I would go for metal halide pendant lighting as it
looks amazing over a planted tank, as it does with marine. I'm not sure
what these holes look like themselves it might be better if you could
upload a picture somewhere so everyone could have a look. Most metal
halide lighting for your size tank would probably be using T5 lights or
similar along with maybe 2 150w bulbs for the main lighting. It's not
cheap by any means. I was thinking about it recently about lighting a
juwel rio300 and I thought I could get two Aquamedic 150w 55cm pendants
which are about £150 each and that woule look pretty cool.

It will be interesting to see what everyone else says on here though.

Neil