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Old 18-07-2003, 11:14 AM
cw
 
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Is there any chance that 4X 36W PL light be able to keep any plant happily
alive in a 5'X2'X2' tank ?


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Old 18-07-2003, 11:14 AM
Ronald Nelson
 
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On 5/19/03 10:24 PM, in article , "cw"
wrote:

Is there any chance that 4X 36W PL light be able to keep any plant happily
alive in a 5'X2'X2' tank ?



If I am calculating right thatıs about a 150 gallon tank with 144 watts of
light. So at least if you are following the lighting rules I've read it's a
low light tank with less than 1 watt per gallon. But I have read that larger
tanks don't require as many watts per gallon to achieve the same results.
Anyone with a big tank able to chime in?

Ron

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Old 18-07-2003, 11:14 AM
Martin
 
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1 watt per gallon is perhaps too small - for any plant to be happy
(especially grasses and red-ones) you need about 3 W/gall
The tank is also 2' (60cm approx) tall - so the intensity of light at the
substrate will fall off more rapidly with deeper tanks - I would suggest
some high intensity tubes as well.

I have a 50 cm high tank 3 tubes with a total of 90W over 250L(66gall) gives
at minimum 1.36W/gall at maximum with parabolic reflectors lets say about
2W/gall. I have trouble keeping algae off the grasses as the grasses don't
seem to want to grow that fast (I use CO2 as well). Some red plants are
actually only red towards the surface and cabomba is not flourishing - it
has long inter-node stems.#

So at 50cm deep 2W/gall is insufficient - funnily enough even the Crypts are
showing hair-algae growth - and they should be low light plants.

I am considering getting Hagen PowerGlo at 18,000K temperature they peak in
the blue spectrum and this should penetrate water to a deeper level. Here's
hoping.

Martin

"cw" wrote in message ...
Is there any chance that 4X 36W PL light be able to keep any plant happily
alive in a 5'X2'X2' tank ?




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Old 18-07-2003, 11:14 AM
cw
 
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The reason behind all this is I have this 5' tank from my previous Discus
adventure . The PL set was from my current reef tank which I had just
upgraded to MH . Not wanting to let all these equipment go to waste , I
thought of why not a planted tank . Since I'm not planning to spend another
fortune setting up another tank , look like I will have to put the idea to
rest for a while . Thanks the help guys .









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Old 18-07-2003, 11:14 AM
Rich Conley
 
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I think it will be fine. 1 wpg in a tank over 100 gallons is a lot of light.

cw wrote:

The reason behind all this is I have this 5' tank from my previous Discus
adventure . The PL set was from my current reef tank which I had just
upgraded to MH . Not wanting to let all these equipment go to waste , I
thought of why not a planted tank . Since I'm not planning to spend another
fortune setting up another tank , look like I will have to put the idea to
rest for a while . Thanks the help guys .


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