The Puffer Forum

Is it okay if the light strip is longer than the tank?

I really think that's overkill & very $$$ for a 10g with low-light plants.

Well I can't seem to find any double strips for a 10g. Are there plants that will grow at 15-18watts in a 10g?

Use a glass top & 2 single fixtures.

Pufferpunk wrote:Use a glass top & 2 single fixtures.

Never thought of that! I'm so dumb.

That's what I have over my 90g (actually 2 double fixtures, totaling 4 bulbs).

Old pic (all low-light plants):

Yes, the low light ones should be fine. I think we had an 18W T8 bulb over our 10gal.

Flutter wrote:Yes, the low light ones should be fine. I think we had an 18W T8 bulb over our 10gal.

1 or 2 bulb?

1

Things will grow slowly but our plants are growing and multiplying. We actually just took the tank down this week.

May try that if I can't find cheap light fixtures.

I use high quality plant bulbs and flourish plant food.

If your tank came with a light fitting why not use that? Lot's of people chase light and end up with algae problems. as RTR has said previously you need a balance between lights and ferts. If you have high light then you need to dose a high level of ferts including CO2. I have put a far too simplistic guide below:

High light + high ferts = fast growing healthy plants and manageable algae.
High light + low ferts = dead plants and lots of algae.
Low light + low ferts = slow growing healthy plants and manageable algae.
Low light + no ferts = dead plants and a little algae.

I had an 18W Compact fluorescent over my 10(US)G snail tank and had very decent growth with little maintenance required.
I decided that the tank wasn't producing enough algae for my snails and I had a spare Exo-Terra hood that would accept 2x15W lamps that fitted nicely over the tank. I decided to put the 2x15W lamps in there and needless to say the algae growth increased to astronomical levels, I want the tank to be low maintenance and low cost (low ferts and no CO2) so needless to say some of the plants have died off because the light drives the plants to require more ferts than are available. I have now reduced 1 of the lamps to an 11W but to be honest the tank still produces more algae than is required and removing the excess means that the tank is no longer as low maintenance as I would like it to be.
I am currently waiting for the higher powered lamps to blow and then I will run with 2x11W lamps - if it wasn't a snail breeding tank then I wouldn't even use that amount of light.

If you want to run a nice planted tank then work out how much you want to spend as an ongoing cost and tailor your plant choice to that.
15W would be absolutely fine for undemanding plants.

"If your tank came with a light fitting why not use that?" It didn't.
I figured if I need to get a light fixture anyway, why not get the best.

greenspottedlover wrote:"If your tank came with a light fitting why not use that?" It didn't.
I figured if I need to get a light fixture anyway, why not get the best.

Maybe I should have wrote "did you tank come with a light fitting? If so why not use that"

But my post was just to give an example to show that you can have too much light. Less light is also more forgiving in terms of algae control.

If you're looking at 20W+ then I'd suggest that you look into CO2 and EI and PMDD+PO4 dosing regimes.

Iliveinazoo wrote:

greenspottedlover wrote:"If your tank came with a light fitting why not use that?" It didn't.
I figured if I need to get a light fixture anyway, why not get the best.

Maybe I should have wrote "did you tank come with a light fitting? If so why not use that"

But my post was just to give an example to show that you can have too much light. Less light is also more forgiving in terms of algae control.

If you're looking at 20W+ then I'd suggest that you look into CO2 and EI and PMDD+PO4 dosing regimes.

I have heard good things about DIY CO2 projects. Would a actual(Store bought) CO2 dispenser be better?