Which Bulbs?

[Fintastic!]

I currently have 2 t5's with my Rio 180 but want to switch to a lower light as I don't want to use co2 and want a low-tech set-up. My internet research is showing me that the fittings for the t5's and the t8's differ so I'd need to replace the whole hood.
I see that Juwel do t5's in nature and colour etc so I'm wondering if these would work out for me. Are these much dimmer than my current highlites?
Thanks!

 

[Fintastic!]

 

[Tizer]

You wont get an educated answer until you let us know what the wattage is of the tubes. T5 and T8 are just tube sizes.

You don't have to lower the wattage if you ditch Co2. I didn't and my tank is fine, plants are still growing happily.

 

[m_attt]

"highlite" is just juwels name for the t5's, nature,colour etc are just different colour temperature bulbs they are all 45w

 

[Fintastic!]

Thanks guys, didn't realise they're all the same wattage. Tizer, how do you manage with no co2 and high wattage? I have 2x45 watts. I have algae everywhere.My plants are doing so-so, they have a lot of algae on them. The only ones really thriving are the vallis.

 

[Tizer]

I've got 4 x 54 Watt tubes over 425 litres, its about 2 Watts per gallon. I've got two Tetratec EX1200's with a real world turn over of 900 LPH, a 900 LPH power head at one end, with a 4400 LPH power head that's on for 16 hours a day at the other end. So there is a lot of water movement in the tank which helps combat algae pretty well.

I dose Ferts weekly and do so quite heavily and i only have the lights on for 6 hours a day. The tank doesn't get any direct natural light either. Hope that helps!

Its nearly always caused by too long a periods of lighting in my experience, not the strength of it.

 

[Fintastic!]

I could probably do with more movement at the bottom of the tank. My lights are only on for 6 hours a day too. The ferts I'm using says to dose once a month but I've been giving half a dose per week. I'll suss out a better fertilizer and see how it goes. Thanks for the help Tizer!

 

[Tizer]

http/www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/

cant really go wrong with the beginners EI kit there, that's all i use, i just cant be bothered to do it daily. its WAY cheaper than buying bottled ferts, just get the kit and mix it up yourself.

 

[spectrum]

Presuming you have white light bulbs at the moment, switching to one of the coloured varieties like the natural or colour or whatever probably would reduce the plants CO2 consumption because although they are of the same power, the wavelengths of the light emitted by the bulbs are different and likely less efficient for the plants photosynthesis.
I'm not sure which bulb the plants would find least useful so this reply is probably useless to you, and you seem to have a solution anyway but I thought i'd throw this in, just some thoughts

 

[m_attt]

plants dont care what colour the bulbs are

 

[Fintastic!]

Thanks a million for your comments guys, very helpful! Tizer is the product called Elos Fase 1? I've checked out the site.

 

[Tizer]

No, grab this its all the dry ferts you need to mix up your own bottles. Its very very easy and they send instructions, you just spoon them out into a bottle add water and shake it up and tadaaaa 500ml of ferts that will last you weeks at the cost of a few pence and dozens more bottles after that. My EI kit has lasted 8 months so far and i dose 600 litres of water, i still have plenty left. You don't have to dose daily either, i just bosh in 100ml macro and 50ml micro after a water change and thats done for a week. Its worked fine for me for the last 6 months since i stopped using compressed CO2.

 

[Fintastic!]

Wowzer! That's fab. I'm a-gettin me some of that. Tizer thanks a gezillion!