New planted lighting advice

[Jbrock]

I am getting into planted aquariums. I am slowly transforming my current community tank into a planted aquarium with a unique aqua scape. Eventually I plan converting gravel to dirt and having a full carpet of something whether it will be baby tears or dwarf hair grass.

I need to fact check with some others experiences. I want to do LED. I've read I need 6000-7000k and 1.4 watts per gallon. Is this legit? And if so how manageable is it for specs to not be exactly those numbers.

For now I'm using a 3w single LED desk lamp to give my plants something after my old fluorescent gave out.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Old Scales]

Look up Brian_Nano12g in here. He is very knowledgable about lighting, especially LED's.
From what I've read, most LED's ready made now give medium light on most tanks. They Do have companies that can custom make fixtures that can give you high light. Remember that light is only one part of the plant triad. The other two are CO2(carbon) and nutrients. All three need to be matched to the type of plants you choose to grow.
I really like your DW. Looks good. OS.

 

[Mebbid]

That is some really nice driftwood. It might be worth looking into making your own LED fixture. You can buy the parts from rapid led. I made a 8 bulb cree led fixture for my 10g and it is way overpowered on lighting.

 

[bcarl_10gal]

From some advice on this forum I went away from HO lights and did my homework about LEDs. What I learned was the the Wattage Per Gallon rule doesn't really apply when looking at LED lights. The better way to measure the strength of the light is the PAR. The finnex website has several great resources you can read to get familiar with what you need for your tank. Along with PAR graphs of their lights. Also I bought the FugeRay for my 10gal and it provides medium light. The Ray2 would supply Med-High light depending on the depth of your tank. The light was only $80 and have had AMAZING results. If you wanted to grow baby tears I have read that you need good light penetration to allow enough light to reach the bottom or they will grow upward instead of carpet.

 

[Jbrock]

From some advice on this forum I went away from HO lights and did my homework about LEDs. What I learned was the the Wattage Per Gallon rule doesn't really apply when looking at LED lights. The better way to measure the strength of the light is the PAR. The finnex website has several great resources you can read to get familiar with what you need for your tank. Along with PAR graphs of their lights. Also I bought the FugeRay for my 10gal and it provides medium light. The Ray2 would supply Med-High light depending on the depth of your tank. The light was only $80 and have had AMAZING results. If you wanted to grow baby tears I have read that you need good light penetration to allow enough light to reach the bottom or they will grow upward instead of carpet.

Thank you bcarlson, you are the man.