Ok, now that I'm setting up my third planted tank, I'm finally reading the sticky at the top of this forum on ("Read this First..."). After reading that and some of the linked threads there, I am more confused than ever.
My situation: setting up a 10g tank as a red cherry shrimp only breeding tank.
My setup is a standard 10g, tahitian moon sand as substrate, some driftwood, a big anubias, a small compacta sword, java moss, and some vals. Nothing fancy.
I got a standard versa top and then as a hood, a standard incandenscent strip light hood (two fixtures), with the plan to head to the local hardware store and pick up two screw-in CF bulbs (which I recently had ask about in another thread, thanks to all who responded in that one.)
My problem: Most of the screw-in CF bulbs I saw at Home Depot are the wrong color temp for growing plants; lots of them are 2700k, others come in at 4100k or 5100k. I did find some that are 6500k. The problem with those is the smallest wattage ones they had at that color temp were 19W bulbs (that is, 19W actual power usage, the "equivalent" of 100W of light blah blah blah).
So if I put two of those in, that's 38W of light on a 10g tank, nearly 4 wpg. Yikes! THEN on top of that, the link in the sticky ("A beginner's guide to lighting") says that when dealing with CF bulbs, one should calculate 1 wpg CF as equivalent to 1.75 wpg in terms of the "rule." So that would seemingly give me 6.65 WPG. (Ugh, super ultra high light).
BUT that's not the whole story, because the link also suggests that in today's world of multiple bulb types, there is another standard to consider, which is lumens per square inch. These Home Depot bulbs put out 900 lumens each, so that's 1800 lumens over 200 square inches, a ratio of 9.0 which according to the chart would put it in the "low to moderate light" category.
Help!
What I am looking for: Enough light to grow some basic plants, nothing fancy. Because this is a RCS breeding tank and the sensitivity of the RCS, CO2 and ferts are not an option. (The folks over at the petshrimp.com forums, who are the experts in shrimp breeding, are pretty strong on this, especially the part about no ferts). Algae growth is not really a huge issue, in fact some amount of algae growth is wanted as this is a big part of the RCS diet. I'm just worried that 4 wpg is gonna be overkill. Ideally I'd like to find bulbs that are about half the wattage but still have the right color temp; so far I've had no luck finding anything that meets that description though.
My situation: setting up a 10g tank as a red cherry shrimp only breeding tank.
My setup is a standard 10g, tahitian moon sand as substrate, some driftwood, a big anubias, a small compacta sword, java moss, and some vals. Nothing fancy.
I got a standard versa top and then as a hood, a standard incandenscent strip light hood (two fixtures), with the plan to head to the local hardware store and pick up two screw-in CF bulbs (which I recently had ask about in another thread, thanks to all who responded in that one.)
My problem: Most of the screw-in CF bulbs I saw at Home Depot are the wrong color temp for growing plants; lots of them are 2700k, others come in at 4100k or 5100k. I did find some that are 6500k. The problem with those is the smallest wattage ones they had at that color temp were 19W bulbs (that is, 19W actual power usage, the "equivalent" of 100W of light blah blah blah).
So if I put two of those in, that's 38W of light on a 10g tank, nearly 4 wpg. Yikes! THEN on top of that, the link in the sticky ("A beginner's guide to lighting") says that when dealing with CF bulbs, one should calculate 1 wpg CF as equivalent to 1.75 wpg in terms of the "rule." So that would seemingly give me 6.65 WPG. (Ugh, super ultra high light).
BUT that's not the whole story, because the link also suggests that in today's world of multiple bulb types, there is another standard to consider, which is lumens per square inch. These Home Depot bulbs put out 900 lumens each, so that's 1800 lumens over 200 square inches, a ratio of 9.0 which according to the chart would put it in the "low to moderate light" category.
Help!
What I am looking for: Enough light to grow some basic plants, nothing fancy. Because this is a RCS breeding tank and the sensitivity of the RCS, CO2 and ferts are not an option. (The folks over at the petshrimp.com forums, who are the experts in shrimp breeding, are pretty strong on this, especially the part about no ferts). Algae growth is not really a huge issue, in fact some amount of algae growth is wanted as this is a big part of the RCS diet. I'm just worried that 4 wpg is gonna be overkill. Ideally I'd like to find bulbs that are about half the wattage but still have the right color temp; so far I've had no luck finding anything that meets that description though.
