FW Aquarium lighting

[Savannah125]

I'm new to this forum and have a semi basic question. Well from what I can tell Aquarium lighting isn't as basic as I had hoped it would be. First off I'm putting together a 125g FW setup. I just finished building the stand the other day. I'll start out small with some African fish and probably keep it that way I may even add some plants but I'm not looking to grow an underwater jungle. Question would a CF setup be the way to go? It looks like these are mainly used for Reef and straight Salt water setups. Would this type of lighting be over kill for my setup. From the prices I've seen it will cost me around $100 to put basic fluorescent lights in prolly 2ea 36" hoods. I found someone on Ebay selling CF 72" -384 Watt
2ea. 96w day + 2ea 96w Actinic + 6 blue moon LEDs. All this for about $200 plus shipping. So do I go with the bare essentials or go for top of the line?

 

[rdd1952]

It really depends on whether you want live plants or not. If the answer is no, then regular flourescents are fine. You probably won't be able to get more than 1 to 1.5 watts per gallon but it doesn't matter since you don't have plants. All the lights are for is for viewing your fish. Just turn them on while you're at home to watch them and turn them off when you leave or go to bed.

If you want plants though, you almost have to invest in power compacs. That is the only way to get the 2+ watts per gallon required to grow most plants. Get a timer and hook it up so the lights come on and go off at the same time each day. That will help keep the amount of light the plants are getting consistent from day to day.

The lights you are talking about would probably be way more than you need. I'm not familiar with SW lighting so I don't know how it would work on FW. You may want to post this in the "Planted" or "Hardware" sections or PM a mod and have them move it.

 

[Savannah125]

Thanks for taking the time to offer some assistance. I'll try posting this in another forum.

I'm new to this forum and have a semi basic question. Well from what I can tell Aquarium lighting isn't as basic as I had hoped it would be. First off I'm putting together a 125g FW setup. I just finished building the stand the other day. I'll start out small with some African fish and probably keep it that way I may even add some plants but I'm not looking to grow an underwater jungle. Question would a CF setup be the way to go? It looks like these are mainly used for Reef and straight Salt water setups. Would this type of lighting be over kill for my setup. From the prices I've seen it will cost me around $100 to put basic fluorescent lights in prolly 2ea 36" hoods. I found someone on Ebay selling CF 72" -384 Watt
2ea. 96w day + 2ea 96w Actinic + 6 blue moon LEDs. All this for about $200 plus shipping. So do I go with the bare essentials or go for top of the line?

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[Firebelle_uk]

Theres an excellent pinned article in the planted tanks section of the forums try that.
I've got a mix of plants and basic flourescent tubes because I didn'nt know I needed special lights etc, but most of them seem to be growing ok. I have them on a timer 10-12 hours aday. Not saying it's right, maybe I'm being lucky... hope you are too.

 

[lutikriss]

the compact lights are well worth the extra cash if you are going to be introducing live plants, if not then basic flouros will be just as effective

as said above the lights are for you , not the fish so the choice is yours!


ian

 

[sinistral]

In addition to what was written above, I'd also suggest that your decision would depend on what kinds of plants you'd like to grow. There are several types of low-light requiring plants that do well under 1 to 1.5 watts per gallon conditions (java moss, java fern, anubias, for example).

If you won't have any live plants to start, I'd remember that you can always upgrade your hood and lights when the time comes. That way, if you never decide to introduce plants, you won't have invested lots of cash into something you'll fully use. As rdd noted, fish don't mind regular fluorescents. HTH~