Is 65W To Much Light? Also General Planted Tank Questions.

[Macro]

Hello all,

I hope this is the place to post this as the question relates to keeping a planted tank which is my goal after my tank cycles.

I have a light set that I used to keep on a reef tank in the past and I'd like to use it as my light source for my planted tank. The tank is a 29Gal 30Lx18Hx12W. The light has two 65w PC it's 24" wide. I know that running both lights at the same time would probably be overkill (appx 4wpg) but what if I run one light giving me 65w (appx 2wpg)?

I don't know quite yet what plants I want to keep. I was more thinking of letting my water parameters and amount of light (watts per gallon) dictate what range of plants would work best in the tank, and then chose from those. I also don't want to get into CO2 right away. I want to understand more about keeping plants in general before stepping into CO2 if it's possible. I have two 20lb bags of Eco-complete and one 16lb bag of Active-Flora as my substrate.

Any thoughts or other things I need to consider?

Thanks for your time and help.

 

[lljdma06]

Then you'll have to reduce the lighting even more if you don't want to delve into CO2 right away. With 65W over a 29g and no CO2, I think you're asking for trouble especially if this is your first planted tank. Could work if you blocked most of the light with floaters.

 

[Macro]

Then you'll have to reduce the lighting even more if you don't want to delve into CO2 right away. With 65W over a 29g and no CO2, I think you're asking for trouble especially if this is your first planted tank. Could work if you blocked most of the light with floaters.

Thank you for your reply. Do you have a good beginners CO2 guide you could turn me to? What would I be in for if I started up with CO2 out of the gate? Thank you.

 

[lljdma06]

Then you'll have to reduce the lighting even more if you don't want to delve into CO2 right away. With 65W over a 29g and no CO2, I think you're asking for trouble especially if this is your first planted tank. Could work if you blocked most of the light with floaters.

Thank you for your reply. Do you have a good beginners CO2 guide you could turn me to? What would I be in for if I started up with CO2 out of the gate? Thank you.

Macro, I received your PM and am currently responding to this post, so let me kill two birds with one stone.

Have you read through PARC? This little post features articles on the basic setup of a planted tank. It addresses CO2 and cycling with planted tanks as well as other aspects of the hobby.

I'm not avoiding answering your questions, but I suggest you read through the following articles. If you have any questions once you've read them, then ask away. We can even use this thread for the question/answer session.

Why We should not fishless cycle Planted Tanks

Back to Basics

Your lighting is the limiting factor and usually determines your plan of action when you setup a planted tank. While the silent cycle article discusses only CO2 tank, its principles can be applied to non-CO2 tanks as well and I bring this up on the thread itself.

llj

 

[Macro]

Thank you for the links, I'll be reading up on them. I'll post any questions I have here. Thanks again