29G lighting

[couch.jeff]

I just set up a 29 Gallon FW tank, with tetras and a betta and eventually some otos, corys, and more tetras. I hate the look of artificial plants and decor (except for my red/black gravel combo) and want a very natural look with real plants, and eventually some real Sumatran Driftwood (once I can find a decently priced US source.) I work at a major chain pet store, and consider myself somewhat knowledgeable about the basics, but lighting has me stumped. I have a few friends and coworkers that insist planting a tank is dumb and is doomed to fail, and I REALLY want to make this work.

The tank came with a regular flourescent hood with a two foot 17W All-Glass Aquarium Rapid-Start bulb, and I'm assuming it's safe to say that's not enough for a decently planted tank. Ideally I'd like to just replace the bulb with a higher wattage and more appropriate spectrum, but have no idea of how to realistically go about getting it set up right.

I'm hoping the massive amount of experienced people here may be able to set me straight on these basics! I tried to look all this up myself, but got lost and gave up after not knowing about the T# and acronyms and pin connection types... etc. I think I have the color temp/wattage info down, but how to get that in a usable bulb is where I fail miserably. I'll stop my lost and confused rambling now, and see if anyone here can accept the challenge of explaining it to me.

EDIT
So upon more searching on my store's website, it seems the only common wattage for the 24 inch length is 20W. Which means I would need three separate lights for a med light tank. I guess that's the most reasonably priced solution, but something simpler would be nice.

[fort384]

Jeff,

Welcome to AA!
Planted tanks are the best, and believe me, not doomed to fail. There are some AMAZING tanks that folks are happily cultivating on this site. It does take some work though.


First off. most likely the bulb that came with your hood is a t-8 florescent bulb. You are not going to find a bulb that fits your fixture that outputs more wattage. You will need to upgrade your lighting fixture to at least 1.5 or so Watts Per Gallon (WPG) to be able to grow low light/low maintainance plants.

Now, depending on what you want to grow, there are MANY lighting options available to you. Unfortunately, this is one of the more expensive pieces of equipment essential to a freshwater planted tank. If you wanted to set up a low light tank, I would suggest looking for a dual 24" T5 high output (T5HO) fixture. I have a NOVA Extreme t5HO that is 48W as a primary fixture over my 29G (I also have a second fixture to up my wattage). These fixtures are marked as 30" so they will fit your tank, but they contain the 24" bulbs (which is fine, the reflector on the lamp, and the difussion of light through the surface will spread it fairly evenly over your tank). This would provide an appropriate level of lighting to grow some good hardy low light plants like anubias, java fern, java moss, etc. You can also look at Power Compact Florescent fixtures. But the key is, you need to get your lighting threshhold at least up over 1WPG if you want to grow plants in your tank.

You touched on spectrum, and this is VERY important too. You want to stay in the 6500-10,000K range to make sure your output is useable for your plants.

If you are using colored standard aquarium gravel, you will probably need to add some root tabs to provide at least some basic nutrients to your plants as well. This substrate will work for plants, but is not ideal... I myself have just plain old black aquarium gravel in my 29g, but with the root tabs, my plants do fine. If you haven't picked out substrate yet, consider using some aquasoil or similar. Laterite works good from what I hear as a base too, and you could put the gravel on top of that. This will provide a lot of essential micronutrients that your plants need.

What I would suggest is going to PlantGeek.net - Your Aquatic Plant Resource and look for low light plants that you want to grow. Start with that. If you decide you like the hobby, you can invest in a second fixture down the road, and consider moving to medium or high light and then consider CO2 addition and fertilization. You want to do your research (again plantgeek is good for this) to make sure you are getting the right type of plants for your setup. Many of the larger chain stores sell plants that are marked as aquatic but are NOT aquatic plants. They will rot and die in your tank, and cause you all kinds of problems . Plantgeek also has a list of non-aquatics often marketed as true aquatics or aquarium plants, so take a look, and AVOID these plants. Often, the non-aquatics are very attractive, so unsuspecting folks pick them up for their tanks (and then get frustrated and wonder why the leaves are turning yellow and won't grow... I was 1 of these people when I started my tank).

Also, check out the resources link in my signature. There is a whole slew of lighting info to be found in that link, and that will provide you some additional info.

Good luck, and be sure to ask if you have questions. You will find a great many knowledgable, helpful, and friendly folks on this site. They have taught me pretty much everything I know about the hobby.

[couch.jeff]

Wow, that list of non-aquatics pretty much includes all the plants at my LFS (where i work) sold as aquarium plants. Including the Gold Ribbon plants that I now know will eventually rot in my tank. Yay for return policies. I guess ordering online is my best option short of a field trip to Houston.
Time to go pot my "Gold Ribbon" plant in the pot on the porch and see how that works!

[cwt]

This tank sounds a lot like the 29G Aqueon/All-Glass kit I got in September, and I haven't modified it because I wanted a low-power, low-maint setup. If you want to buy another bulb for the T-8 fixture, I'm using a GE AquaRays 'Fresh & Salt Aqua' bulb that some sources list as 9325K on the color spectrum (the original packaging does not show this). Found mine at Lowe's hardware; MUCH cheaper than a typical LFS bulb and works well with the plants.

You can grow plants with this setup; planting a tank is NOT doomed to fail! My bronze cryptocornes have done well, at least the ones that have not been moved. My java ferns and java moss are both growing. Some people like anubias, but they haven't done that well for me in this setup; they may need a little more light, or less water current (or less algae coverage... even with the 20W bulb, you can get some algae on broad surfaces). Like fort says, the under-gravel food tabs are a good idea; I think that's what has kept my crypts going for 4 months. Good luck; if you get a tank going, post a few pics.