Lighting A 10g Planted Tank

[jesseoneill]

Howdy mates,

I have a 10g (US gallons) planted tank and I love getting those plants to look nice. I'm interested in increasing the lighting on my tank, and would like the community's opinion on the two options I am considering.

1) Current USA Single Satellite 20 inch, 1X40W
2) Current USA Dual Satellite 20 inch, 2X40W

What do you folks think? Is 8 wpg overkill? Will it be too bright for the fish? I'd like to be able to grow high-light plants (a Riccia carpet is a goal of mine), and I've heard that lighting behaves differently in small tanks. Right now I have twin 15W flourescent tubes over the tank, so I'm wondering just how much more benefit I'll get from going up to 40W.

On a related question, the Single comes with a 10,000K/460nm Actinics lamp, and the Dual comes with Dual Actinic (420nm/460nm) and Dual Daylight (6,700K/10,000K) bulbs. All that actinic stuff is marine stuff, right? I believe I would want to run either 1 or 2 of the Dual Daylights, right? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks for the help!

 

[mlawson]

8wpg is way too much, 4wpg is considered high. If I were you I would keep with the lighting you have, 3wpg should be enough to create a riccia carpet and for it to pearl, I have had riccia carpets with 2wpg.

 

[voo]

Don't forget that 3wpg over a 10g tank isnt the same as 3wpg over a larger tank.
I have a 12g tank which used to have 2x15w lights over it. Riccia didnt grow that well, and dwarf hairgrass certainly didnt.

I've since upgraded the lighting to 3x24w, giving me 6wpg. The riccia is growing like mad and the hairgrass is doing well. I do add ferts each day and CO2. There's not much algae either.

As for the lighting, you dont want those 10k marine lights, they're no good. The 6.7k will be much better.

Whether you get 1 or 2x40 will depend on how much time you're going to give to your tank. If you get the 2x 40w, you'll have to make sure your CO2 levels are high and ferts, otherwise you could end up with a lot of algae.

One thing that puzzles me though, is the 40W from a tube, over a 10g tank, which can take a 22" tube at most.

 

[jesseoneill]

One thing that puzzles me though, is the 40W from a tube, over a 10g tank, which can take a 22" tube at most.

Here is a link to the lights. Maybe I should have mentioned that they're compact flourescent.

I currently run DiY CO2 (Nutrafin), changing the mixture in the reactor once per week. I also dose with liquid ferts every other day (following the directions on the bottle), but will be starting "true" EI before adding the new light. Combine that with the fact that the plants are all in about 2 inches of Eco-Complete, and I'm guessing that I'm good on the nutrient end of things.

Basically, from what I know about lighting small tanks the 8wpg option is looking really nice. It's what I'll probably do unless I can get a good reason not to, so someone give me a good reason.

P.S. - If anyone has any other lighting options for a standard size 10 US gallon tank that would bring it to around 6-7wpg, feel free to share.

 

[lljdma06]

The key to your system is to maintain stable and high CO2. If you haven't thought about pressurized (which if you went with 8WPG, would be a good idea), consider running a second Nutrafin canister to your bubble ladder or current diffusor using a T-connector and then changing one mix on alternate days. The CO2 level will be far more stable.

The only thing I can think of is a double T8 20" fixture, if they even exist in this size, and lay two of these on your 10g, which would give you 60W, but that would be ginormous and ugly. Or a singel 24" 65W power compact, but again, it juts out two inches on each side, and it's ugly. 8WPG isn't unreasonable over a 10g, if you have very stable CO2 levels and good ferts.

I know I had a Coralife fixutre that was 28W and 24", but it was very slender and didn't jut out so much. Two of those would give you 5.4WPG, which is pretty good for a 10g and Yeast CO2. I ran two of those over a 15g high with very good results. If the tank was a 10g, I'm sure I would have gotten things to carpet well, but the tank was rather tall.

Voo, what are the dimensions of your 3x24 for your 12g? If it's not too ghastly, that may work too.

Otherwise, I'm pretty much clueless.

 

[voo]

The key to your system is to maintain stable and high CO2. If you haven't thought about pressurized (which if you went with 8WPG, would be a good idea), consider running a second Nutrafin canister to your bubble ladder or current diffusor using a T-connector and then changing one mix on alternate days. The CO2 level will be far more stable.

Until i got a pressurised CO2 kit just recently, i used to run 2 nutrafin kits (actually one was a DIY job), and i had no problems with algae. Certainly better than running just the one, like you said.

Voo, what are the dimensions of your 3x24 for your 12g? If it's not too ghastly, that may work too.

The light unit is 24" x 7", the tubes being 22" T5's. The tank itself it 23" x 11", so the light does stick out a little, but it's nothing really.

 

[mlawson]

I just think 8wpg is too much, even in a small tank. Why not just have 4wpg? It's plenty, your plants will still grow well, you will be able to get riccia to carpet, and they will still pearl like mad.

 

[lljdma06]

I just think 8wpg is too much, even in a small tank. Why not just have 4wpg? It's plenty, your plants will still grow well, you will be able to get riccia to carpet, and they will still pearl like mad.

I kind of do too. If it were me, I'd go for 2 28W double t5 fixtures from Coralife, giving me 5.6WPG, which I think is pretty darn good. According to the website below, you would need 65W.

http/www.fitchfamily.com/lighting.html