lighting a deep tank

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Hello all,

Need advice in lighting a 120g (60x18x24) planted tank. I'm leaning towards AH Supply PC's (already have a 1x96w I can use). Just wondering how many WPG would be needed to support Glosso or other foreground plants in a 24" tall tank.

All my past experiences have been with 16" tall tanks. I'm sure more lighting is needed for a tall tank. Just not sure how much. TIA
 
Well according to Tom Barr you should be able to get by with 1 wpg or so as long as you keep all the other nutrients balanced. But I would feel much more comfortable at the 2.5-3 wpg range on your tank. You could go with a 2x96 and a 2x55 which would give you great coverage and put you right at 2.5 wpg. stagger the lights so you have a 55-96 and a 96-55 and go for it.

If you needed more light then you could add more. Another set of lights would boost you to 3.75 watts of light which is a lot of light for a large tank.
 
Funny you mention that Rex. I was actually leaning towards a 2x55 and 2x96. Staggering them with timers. My problem is, I don't fully understand lighting on such a large tank. I know large tanks require far less lighting than say a 10g, houseing the same plants.

I was just trolling around on AGA. Looking at what set ups alot of thier tanks have. Lighting was anywhere from 1.2-6 WPG in the large size tanks 8O

Currently I have a 40g planted tank with approx. 2.5 WPG. After weekly trimmings. I finally cut the lighting back to 10 hours a day (turning off twice in this time period). Reduced the CO2 and cut back on the ferts. The weekly trimming, replanting was overwhelming.

Which leads me to my concern. I don't want to over light, when I could use the money wasted on over lighting towards other equipment. Building a large planted tank is'nt cheap. This tank will take me about 4 to 6 months to build up and get running.
 
I can under stand that. And you could stagger the lights with timers and like I said I would feel a lot more comfortable with the 2.5 wpg. One thing you could do is look at the AGA pictures and get a feel for what you want the tank to look like and see how much lighting they are running.
 
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