How Much Lighting To I Need For 40 Gallons Tank.

[csr mel]

i have a 40 gallon tank that is of the long variety. it currently has 1 flurescent bulb in the hood. and i find the lighting to be lacking. i am making a new hood out of wood because the current black hood is rather ugly and the opening for maintence is too small. plus my tank stand is varnished wood and the black hood just doesnt match the stand.

sence ill be making this new hood from scratch, i wonder if i should design it with an additional flurescent bulb, or maybe 3 bulbs?


what do you guys suggest i do for lighting? whats the hot ticket now for lighting? can you ever have too much light into a tank? like can fish get sunburn or make them go blind?

thanks.

 

[Pheonix]

hey csr!

what sort of tank is it you are keeping? planted? tropical? marine?

im my opionion you cant over-do it with the lighting, if you have a little extra cash i would definatly recomend T5 lighting its smaller so easier to fit than the normal T8's they give off better light and make your fish and plants look great

2 T5's would out do 3 normal T8's easy

heres a site link if you are looking to pick some up

T5 lighting

HTH
Andy

 

[csr mel]

its a tropical tank, no plants. i find that plants only last a week before they die off. i must be cursed when it comes to plants.

thanks for the reply. ill look into those t5's.


heres another question, is there any praticular light which would complement my glofish? (genetically modified zebra danios with jellyfish dna). if there is any special colour of light that would make their colour pop out more, that would be a big plus.

 

[skiltrip]

i made a custom wood hood for my tank, and built a Coralife Aqualight compact fluorescent fixture into the top of it. It's worked out quite nice. all you do is design the hood the way you want it, cut a rectangle hole in the top about a 1/4" smaller than your light fixture on all sides, and put trim around the hole. It'll fit right around the fixture, no light escaping. If you're curious about how it looks I'll try to send some pictures.

 

[BigIan]

beware of adding to much light as this will trigger huge amounts of alge