Upgrading Nice!

[nicklfire]

Well i went down to the LFS to talk to them about upgrading my lighting

when i bought my tank i got a crappy... just normal bulbs....

Then i went back about 2 months ago wanting to get florescent bulbs.. because i started growing plants.

I found out after reading on this forum that the rule is 2w per gallon...

My sitting with my 33 gal and only have a 17 Watt light isnt that great...

So i went down and talked to them and now i'm getting a custom build lighting system which will include:

2x 40 Watt lights (24") High Output lighting system...6500K's !!!!!!!

So i'll be running about 80 watts and it's going to cost me about... 100$ which isnt a bad deal i thought.

Because i have a normal plastic top i'm upgrading that to glass now. Lucky ME!!!!!!


i'm still noobie so waht you guys think

 

[MXPX4318]

sounds good, just make sure you've got plenty of quick growing nutrient sucking up plants in that tank and some good ferts to balance things out or you'll have yourself one ummmm can I say Hell? of an algea outbreak. Just a forewarning make sure you have balance, it's not all about the light it's about the balance of light, nutrients in water, substrate, and plants. not to say I'm the best at that, I definetly learned the light lesson the hard way when I upgraded and still am battling w/ hair algeas and brown algeas, but it's definetly clearing up nicely.

Phillip

 

[nicklfire]

cant you just counter the Algae because of the lighting by adding a CO2 diffuser?

 

[moe_1]

dont put that much watts on ur tank or as soon as u leave ur tank for a while and miss a cleaning or watever it will become mega algified. The co2 is just co2 if ur tank is dutch style planted (mass planted in every corner) then you'll need co2 badly but if ur tank has a few plants in it and u dont clean it as much as the fanatics ur screwed with the 80 watts of light. You've got a 33Gal? then get 66 watts worth of lights...max. but good work on changing to flurecents, it helps alot.

 

[jimbooo]

hi nicklfire.

sounds good but as previously said you'll have to go the whole way with the equipment. you could have a really nice tank if you also add substrate additive, co2 and dose ferts using the EI method.

check out the example tanks in the pinned section of the planted forum for our equipment lists. this will give you an idea of whats envolved.

if you just add the light and do nothing else you WILL have magor algae problems in a few months time. great excuse to spend a load of cash on the tank now and get it sorted for the long term. pm me if you want to know anything in more detail.