• We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo

Lighting a Planted Tank

Lumens is a poor way to gauge a light for plants. Lumens are based on the human high which sees more in the yellow to green area, plants use the red and blue area of the spectrum.

On page one there is a graph that was put together with a lot of reseach. a T5HO with a good reflector is considered
High 15" and closer
Medium 15" to 24"
Low 24" to 34"

Now you just need to figure out how many bulbs you need for coverage.
 
Alright...I'm trying to read this and it's flying over my head:confused: So if I have a 10w CFL on a 2.5g, would that be High Light? Would it be too much if I went with a 23w? It's for growing HC, by the way.
 
need advice..
my tank is 48"L x 18"w x 18"h(water level)
are lights enough for my plants?
i have 3x 48" 36W osram 6500k cool daylight on it.
 
Hi I have a 20 gallon high and the equation that combined the dimensions came out to 66. Well I* have plants and from the lumens they aren't getting any light at all. Well I wanted to know if these bulbs here would do the trick and if the better one would be either the pink or blue one.... the blue one has higher lumens but its a 10 watt? Should I go for the 20watt ones they also sell? Or would these be fine? I have a mini bulb screw in not the long rods. Here's the website: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=9870#BVQAWidgetID
 
Thasts 320 watts so just fidn the watts per gallon and it should be fine. I have a 10 gallon with 2 20watt plant bulbs and thats 4 watts were gallon and mine are growing out of control with little algea growth
 
What about led's? All it says is 2 watts for a 1 gallon hob refugium so that would be 2wpg and it has 21 little lights 3 are moonlight. Is led t5, t8, or t12? Please help

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Ok so I'm sure that you get this a lot but I'm trying to get some plant growth going in my 150h (48x24x31) and the math doesn't seem to make sense. Is there any way you could explain this further for me?
 
I am not the best of the planted guys, but I would like to make this point. There is a lot of talk about what the “eye” sees. This is more an aspect of Kelvin than PAR. Light is usually the limiting factor. Even with excess light you are less likely to have problems than with excess nutrients. Focus on light first. I grow a lot of red (high light) plants in with 2 T5 regular lights on a 55g tank. Many people start thinking about CO2 and ferts before light, which will set you up for various algae issues. Phosphate is an ongoing issue for people that get into plants, mainly because they have slow growing or insufficient plant coverage for their fert routine. Insufficient light leads to the most common issues. Over lighting is another less common issue, but few have insufficient carbon, nitrate, or phosphate issues.
 
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