Hood And Lights

[dylanf]

My new tank has now got its water in with filter and heater running. I shall start adding ammonia tommorow.

However, I need a hood and light for the tank. The tank is 48 Inches Wide and 12 Inches Long. I plan to keep plants in it as well.

I am interested in the this item. Now along with the hood, I need lights. However, its the light bit that confuses me. How many watts should my tubes be, and how long should they be. Also, is the lighting controller all I need?

cheers

 

[soritan]

Will there be live plants in the tank, or just silks?

 

[dylanf]

Will there be live plants in the tank, or just silks?

There will be live plants in there. As I understand, they need lots of light.

 

[soritan]

If it's 20 US gallons or over, you can use the "Watts per gallon" rule quite effectively. There's a sticky in the plant section of this forum that explains it far better than I can, and a useful website would be www.plantgeek.net

My tank is small, only 10 US gallons, I'm at 4wpg, which is considered medium-low light.

Just make sure that your hood can accomadate upgrades when you buy it, as it most likely won't come with plant-ready lights.

Stick to "day light" type bulbs, or anything 6500k or 6700k warmth, though, those guys have more useful light frequencies to plants than standard warm or cool bulbs.

 

[piper]

I'm at 4wpg, which is considered medium-low light.

Really I thought that is considered high , less than 2wpg would be med low IMO

 

[soritan]

That rule only applies to tanks over 20 gallons. As I have a 10 gallon tank, 4wpg is considered medium-low.