Lights for new 29g tall

[zzzebra]

I've been reading about various types of lights and getting a little dizzy--lol. I'm upgrading my goldfish and low light plants to a 29g tall, but want to have maximum flexibility when they outgrow yet another tank and I use the 29g for other animals/plants.

What kind of light bulbs are good for this sort of aquarium? Are two lights better than one for later flexiblility, and would it be too much for the goldies? (I don't have the light fixture yet, so can go double or single.)

Is there any such thing as a standard light for FW purposes?

Many thx,
Z

 

[SeanMurphy]

I'd go double tube fixture. Then you can always run a standard tube, for the more pleasant colour, and a gro-light tube to make your plants happy. I'm a basement dweller, so my tank gets no natural light whatsoever. I just finished retrofitting CF fixtures into my hood, because I've gone to planted and wanted to have more than the 0.8WPG that my existing fixture allowed. I've now got about 2WPG of CF U-tubes with a color temperature of 6500k. If i'd had a double fixture, I could have skipped the whole mess and just bought a gro-light tube (or two) instead of retrofitting CF tubes I had laying around into a hood, bypassing the soldering burn and contact cement I got on my hands.

Oh, and I COULD have bought a new fixture, and do plan on it some day down the road, but they're not cheap, and I'm all out of monies what with christmas upcoming. The CF route was cheap to the point of free, as I had all the parts except the actual tubes laying around, and the lighting store down the road sells them dirt cheap.