Corallife Aquatic Light

[LadyAphrodite]

About a year ago I purchased a CoralLife Aquatic Light with these specs:
65 watt 10,000K and 65 watt True Actinic 03 Blue straight pin base compact fluorescent lamps
Two on/off switches with two 8-foot power cords for separate timers
Built-in ballasts
Two cooling fans
Sleek aluminum housing
Highly-polished reflector
Acrylic lens cover

Long story short, I'm wondering if I bought the right thing for my freshwater tank. It's a tall half hex 40 gal. I get the feeling that it's intended for coral, not freshwater and that I goofed. Can anyone lead me in the right direction?

 

[chrisdoesntmiss]

Im afraid that the 10,000 Kelvin lamps are usually used for marine, however that is not to say that all use them. I have had some pretty good plant growth just using the blues. However the plants have been stunted with them. If you are not growing plants however then there is no problem apart from it might be a little bright for the fish and may become a bit timid.

 

[LadyAphrodite]

Well dern. That was a waste of good money. I am trying to grow plants so this isn't gonna work. Guess I'll try to sell this one on EBAY and start over. What annoys me now is that I bought it at a large LFS with the assurance that it would do what I wanted. Guess I should have done more research. (And possibly have been more wary of a saleperson who acted like I was bothering him).

Thanks for the info.

 

[chrisdoesntmiss]

You should ba able to change over the tubes in it, go for something like arcadia freshwater. It has a pinkish glow and pretty much hits the right red and blue peaks in the light spectrum. all is not lost

 

[LadyAphrodite]

Coralife sells this:

6,700K Compact Fluorescent Lamp 65 Watt 21 Inch - Straight Pin Base
6,700K lamps provide a full-spectrum light that replicates sunlight to provide the essential light requirements for a successful aquarium.


Before I go out and spend 50 bucks on two more lamps, can someone tell me if this'll work?

 

[chrisdoesntmiss]

What plants are you wanting to grow?

 

[LadyAphrodite]

What plants are you wanting to grow?

I haven't decided yet, but I figure having at least 3w/gal would give me more options than low light. My other reasoning for buying the coralife is that my tank is taller than usual, I didn't want the light to dissapate too much before it got to the bottom.

A short list:

Cardamine (Cardamine lyrata)
Some Anubias - not sure what variety
Echinodorus palaefolius var. latifolius - actually have 2 of these in there already, bought them before really doing research
Egleria fluctuans - I would love but I've read that it is difficult to maintain
Pearl Weed (Hemianthus micranthemoides)
Cardinal Flower

 

[SuperColey1]

Having 3WPG for your first tank could be a recipe for disaster.

Take a look down the posts for George Farmer's 125Ltr which has 1WPG!!

Most plants will grow at 2WPG. Above this is just the growth rate and sometimes colours that will change!!.

If you do go for 3WPG then you have much more chance of an algae explosion because like plants algae grows much quicker in high light.

Andy