By bulb for a planted tank?

[e burna]

I have a 29 gallon tropical fish tank. It's new. Got a "real" plant for it, and it was withering. It only gets soft sunlight during the day, so went and got a new bulb, $16.99 at the pet store, it's 20W and 2800K. They told me this is what I would need for plant growing. The bulb is called flora glow I believe. Does this sound decent? Are my plants gowing to grow, or did I get a bad bulb?

 

[malkore]

Its not the bulb, but a lack of enough light. you have less than 1 watt per gallon. A small handful of plants can survive at this low level. Other plants need at least 2 watts per gallon (60watts in your case) and still others need 3 watts/gall.

However, its also possible you have a non-aquatic plant. Its not uncommon for any pet/fish store to sell something that's not a true aquatic.

Do you know the name of the plant you picked up?

 

[e burna]

I'm not trying to have a bunch of plants. I got 3 of these red fern type of plants (although they are somewhat green). Should I take this bulb back and get something different?

 

[malkore]

Any bulb can grow plants...it's quantity over quality...the more watts the better, but the only way to increase watts is to add more bulbs (i'm not going to delve into ODNO here).

red fern type plants...tells me nothing. I think your bulb is fine, but still may not provide enough light for the plants.

 

[aquazen]

For low lights, go with the java variety. Java fern, java moss, java etc. They should do fine with the low wattage, so long as there's light.

 

[e burna]

Any bulb can grow plants...it's quantity over quality...the more watts the better, but the only way to increase watts is to add more bulbs (i'm not going to delve into ODNO here).

I've been told that black lights do nothing for plant growth? True or false? Sorry, I'm a newbie and am really trying to find all the RIGHT answers. Thanks again for reading.

 

[malkore]

True. Black lights, and actinic too, do not put out a spectrum that's very useful to plants. A small part of actinic light can be used by the plants, but not enough to consider it part of your total wattage.
To the best of my knowledge, blacklight is totally useless to plants.

 

[krap101]

oh haha i was thinking you meant like apogoton bulbs or something

 

[angmoh]

2800k light bulb is definitely not recommended for plants ... choose between 6000k - 10,000k

 

[supaoopa]

It's possible to have low light plants grow in your tank. Hard, but not impossible. Do you have a pic of your tank so we can see what the plant looks like?

 

[e burna]

Hopefully I can post a pic next week of the tank, I have a question though, not exactly sure this is the spot for it, but why not? Anyway, what does the "kudos" term mean over by your name like 2 lines up from the bottom? Thanks.

 

[supaoopa]

LOL, i never noticed that. Now I'm curious too.

 

[Jchillin]

Kudos are a way of saying thank you, or "gosh you did something great" for AA members. You earn kudos when you start a thread or post in one automatically.

 

[malkore]

You can also donate your Kudos to another member, if you think they deserve it (for a particularly useful post, reply, etc).