Lights , what make lights more

WAS:
I started a small tank, 10g with a oversized cool white fluorescent tube 20watts. The tank is only 60cm ling and so was the light, I had to make a new canopy to fit the light. It was the cheapest easyest light I could find in the house, and was 4 years old, and I had all planxt growing wildly "see attach"
I have now moved all of that to a 36gal tank, but I also upgraded the lights, I added 1 18watt fluorescent biolux light, and four energy saver 20Watt lights.

NOW:
My plant is slowly dying off and gets covert in both green and brown alge

BUT:
I have notice the energy saver light is only 2700K lights, and the other two lights is 4500K, Does this make a diffrence, as the energy saver light is much smaller for the same watts and runs very cool and twice the amount of light a same watt fluorescent tube.
with the 6 lights I have a 118watts for 36Gal/160l so that 3.2 watts per gal/4.5l

TRIED:
I also have a diy CO2 system on the tank thats is was not in the small tank, I was hopeing it would help. I also added Wimex Ferroplant.
If I remove the 4 energy saver light I would only have space for one more fluorescent tube leaving me with 1.4watts per GAL light

HELP:
is there any other lights that I could add to help as space seems to hold me back. One size bigger light is 1.2m\4ft long 40watts and tank in only 900mm long\3ft
so bigger fluorescent tubes wouldn't work.

Since you had no CO2 in the 10, it clearly wasn't necessary. If the light is wrong, CO2 and fertilizer is next to useless.

Normally, you will want to use full spectrum lamps, these run between 5500K and 6500K. A cooler lamp produces more longer wavelength light. You now have a lot of Wattage, but not a very broad spectrum. I would try taking out the energy savers and getting some suitable full spectrum lamps over the tank and see what happens.

and four energy saver 20Watt lights.

Click to expand...

Not only watts but lumens ("lumen")! Do those energy saver bulbs(?) produce as much lumens as normal fluorescent tube?

MrV , that what I dont know, I could remove the energy saver lights, but 3 of those take the same space as on 18Watt fluorescent tube, so I have to lower the watts if I only add one fluorescent tube and remove the 4 energy saver lights

I cant see how anyone could add 90watts of fluorescent light to a 3ft tank

Silly Me,

Lateral Line is correct - CO2 and lighting go hand in hand, increasing the light won't help unless the other factors are increased as well. There is a great article here on www.tropica.com.

Poor growth in plant aquaria has usually been attributed to insufficient light over the tank and when asking the experts, the advice has always been to increase the light availability before any other action is taken. New research shows that this may be poor advice, in particular, for an aquarium without CO2 fertilisation

Click to expand...

The light spectrum of the energy saver lights is way off what you need. Land based plants are able to use light at the red/green end of the visible spectrun plus infra-red. However these wavelengths do not penetrate water very well so aquatic plants have evolved to use light more towards the green/blue end of the spectrum. A 2700k 'warm white' lamp will produce too much light at the lower end of the spectrum - this can also encourage algae growth. Compact bulbs are available at higher colour temperatures such as the 5500k or 6500k suggested by Lateral Line, however I do not know of any local suppliers to you in South Africa. You may be able to order some from the US or the UK but shipping (and potential import charges) might make it prohibitive.

As MrV notes, the wattage is not the most important thing for a bulb or tube used on an aquarium.....

Tropica's web site again:

The common rule of thumb of "2 to 3 watts per gallon" (0.5 to 0.8 watts per liter) is often used as the starting point. Many aquarists mistakenly think "more is better" and brag of setups using VHO or metal halide bulbs generating 4 or 5 watts per gallon (1.1 to 1.3 watts per liter). In general, plants do not need this much light. We have been very successful with 1.5 to 2 watts per gallon (0.4 to 0.5 watts per liter) on our planted tanks.

Click to expand...

I would swear by the information from Tropica - they produce easily the best aquatic plants I have ever seen.

HTH, Eddie

Plants absorb different kind of wavelenghts but e.g. chlorophyll a and b:

y-axis is absorbance and x-axis is wavelenght.


As you can see, there is almost not yellow/green region at all. Blueish and reddish is absorbted. And that's why plants look greenish.

Full spectrum fluorescent tubes are great, because they contain whole visible region - good for plants and goor for people, who is watching tank (= colours look natural).

I have no clue about energy saver bulbs... All in my tanks I use fluorescent tubes and light is as much as 0,25 - 0,35 W / liter. Plants grow excellent. (If you have very high tank, you need more light.)

Looking at the tropica site I notice this little AquaCube


with this little light


I got these from the local hardware store for next to nothing, BUT these boys gets hot, wow. Its 50Watt and 2 X the lumen of a normal fluorescent tube


fluorescent tube (Bio Lux) 1150 lumens 4500K 18Watt
Energy Savers 800 Lumens 2700K 20Watt
Eurolux Halogen Lamp 240V 3000 Lumens 5700 - 5500K 50Watt
Eurolux Halogen Lamp 12V 2100 Lumens 5700 - 5500K 50Watt

I now only have the 3 fluorescent tube in the tank but I will add the 2 Halogen lamp in over the weekend, I didnt know about all the lumens and temp diffrent lights gives while burning,

I have a little 1ft tank for my wife's Siamese Fighter, I am also thinking of adding one of Tropica plant centrepiece with a open top, I dont think the betta could jump out??

>>> BUT these boys gets hot, wow.

You got that right! A lot of people that use halogen lighting have the light enclosures above open top tanks to prevent the water being heated, I've also seen elaborate fan systems to keep enclosed hoods cool.

I have to update this post..

I now have most of my plant opening new leaves. Its a wonderful.

I added more plant as well, instead of dieing off and cutting the old leafs before it starts to grow. The new plant just kept growing, O added some swords over the lower light plant, But I think I might need to trim the swords realy soon, as some of the corner of my tank is getting very dark.

Just a note on Halogen Lamp

I have a total of 238Watts over 36 Gal of water this is 6.61w/g

I have 2 x fluorescent tubes 18 - 20W
4 x Eurolux Halogen Lamp 50Watt each

The 50 Watts of a Halogen Lamp is NOT the same as 50W fluorescent tubes

Halogen Lamps spectrum is the same over all the colors from invisible infra red right up to invisible ultra violet, generating a lot of unneeded light spectrum and heat.
Currently for me this is a not a really big issue as no algae growth seems to consume extra/unused light. Also with such a wide spectrum of light, there is also nothing that is missing.

The red colored plant is now getting a brighter red, the yellow colored leafs turned into the green it was when I bought it. The old brown leafs is either falling of or I cut it of as so much new ones the old leafs was just looking ugly

The brown and green alga that was on the sides on the tank was removed with a blade and did not return yet, but I am keeping the lights only on for 8-10 hours a day. Hoping it will never return.

and this is how I changed my small tank

That give me 10Watts/per gallon but it compares to 4-5watts per gallon fluorescent light