I've read that intensity is more import than spectrum. So personally, any
light will help.

"Other plants have adapted to areas where the sun lovers can't compete.
These plants are generally slow growers, and do not give off large amounts
of oxygen. Examples of these types of plants would be most Cryptocoryne and
Anubias species. Many of these plants do well in relatively dimly lit tanks,
and are not likely to exhaust the CO2 provided by the fish and biological
activity in the aquarium. These plants show little, if any, direct
improvement with light and CO2 increased beyond moderate levels."

http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/a...ic/default.asp


"Richard Krush" wrote in message
...

Hi,

I currently have a 20gal/75l "tall" aquarium (24 x 12 x 16 in^3 or 60
x 30 x 40 cm^3) that doesn't have any lighting for the moment, since
I'm running a bit short on the cash. It is almost unplanted, with only
two Anubias nana plants and two very young (one is almost invisible)
unknown to me plants. Nevertheless, I would like to try my hardest to
preserve these plants from dying and perhaps get some more low-light
plants (my fish need more plants than I currently have).

Firstly, like the subject says, I would like to find a cheap temporary
lighting and later upgrade/change to better lighting. As far as I
understand, fluorescent lighting would be perfect, but is unsuitable
for the role of cheap, temporary lighting, since I would still need to
buy the ballast and fixture and later throw that away as I buy better
lighting.

Another option are incandescent, halogen, or self-ballasted compact
fluorescent bulbs that fit into regular incandescent sockets and can
be reused in other areas later. These would be perfect for temporary
lighting, but I'm wondering if having such light would be any better
than having no light. I have a few different incandescent bulbs as
well as one halogen spotlight, so the cost would be practically
$0. The 75W inc. bulbs have light output of 1090 lumens (according to
the packaging) and I would guess rather warm color (2000K?), the
halogen lamp's packaging says that the light output is 1400 for 100W
with built-in reflector, but the color temperature is rather low as
well. Another problem is intense heat, I tried to use it for the
aquarium and even when it was placed two feet away, the temperature
rose by around two degrees F. As to the compact fluorescent, from what
I was able to find on GE, Sylvania, and Philips websites, the bulbs
have rather high light output (2100 lumens for 34W bulb) and maybe
even cooler temperature (2700K), but would cost me about $10-20 each.

So, what would you recommend out of these tree options (or another
similar option that I've missed)? Would it be better to just leave the
aquarium without any lighting (the only light source is a fluorescent
ceiling lamp, that is about 6ft away) and buy the fluorescent lighting
proposed by the LFS later?

And one last question, would DIY CO2 injection be beneficial to such
low-planted aquarium and practically no light?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Richard Krushelnitskiy

--
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War
IV will be fought with sticks and stones." -- Albert Einstein