What lighting to grow....

[Ilminded]

I'm trying to get a lighting system for a 45 gallon tank. It will be a dirt tank with a pressurized CO2 system. The light fixture I was looking at was a 2 light T5 HO ballast, rated for 39 W bulbs. If getting that, with dual growing bulbs, do you think I would be able to grow Rotala macrandra with a max depth of 12 inches from light source to flooring of plant?

 

[Ilminded]

Anyone familiar with plant?

 

[Glow light tetra]

High light

 

[Ilminded]

I know that but will the light fixture mentioned above suite the plant?

 

[Glow light tetra]

It sound good. But it really depends on how long you decide to leave them on for.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Also..not all T5HO fixtures are the same. What really differentiates them are the quality of the reflectors. For example, a Hagen Glo fixture with high quality parabolic reflectors would put out more intensity than a Odyssea fixture with same bulbs/wattage.

Also, bulbs make a difference too. You should get Giesemann bulbs, 1 midday and 1 powerchrome aquaflora. You'll have a good mix to get a nice full spectrum to get your stems to color up. You'll also need to keep nitrates low and phosphates high for reds to develop.

Are you going to adopt a comprehensive dosing regimen such as EI or PPS-Pro?

 

[Ilminded]

I was going to focus on tabs, with liquid every other week as I'm planing on some moss and nana tied on DW/rocks. I have a planted tank now where I'm dosing weekly trace and iron and liquid CO2 everyday I'm there.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

I think the Rotala Macrandra would need something more comprehensive to thrive. You'll need to learn EI or PPS-Pro.

 

[jetajockey]

A good comprehensive root tab might be enough if they have a decent root structure. Lighting is the key factor to reds in plants and you have plenty of it with that setup, so you should be fine. The only problem with skipping dry dosing is it makes it difficult to know whether or not the plants have all the ferts they need for sure.

 

[Ilminded]

I read up on the plants I want to put in and know what to look for. This was the most difficult one where the others require med-low light. I just wanted to know before I buy lights.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Yeah the moss and anubias are low light tolerant plants. If you put high light on this tank for the macrandra, you should probably plant heavy with other fast growers. Otherwise, you might run into some algae issues because the macrandra (unless you have a lot of it) will be the only plant competing with the algae.

 

[Ilminded]

I think with the combo of fully stocked tank, dirt with clay mixed in, proper ferts and a mix of slow-very fast growing plants with pressurized CO2 (with the addition of fish that eat most types of algae) I think I will be ok. I just wanted to make sure the lighting would be enough as I wanted some color with my plants and that was the most difficult on the list. I'm still in design mode and getting filter, lights and heater shortly. DW to follow after.

 

[Rivercats]

Remember that many of the fish that eat algae also are known to eat tender leaf plants and often lose interest in eating algae once they get larger. SAE's are good for doing this. IMO you'd be better with a few amano shrimp and some nerites over fish. American flagfish eat some algae but again often lose interest in algae if too much other food items are available. Plus they can get quite aggressive especially males. We used to keep them in one of our smaller ponds.

I would definitely do Geisemann bulbs but I'd do 2 6000k Midday bulbs instead of one Midday and one Aquaflora bulbs. The Aquaflora is dim and I've gotten great results with color improvement using only the 6000K Midday bulbs which also makes the tank brighter. I have a ton of R. Macrandra and besides good light it colors up much better when running a low nitrate- high phosphate tank.

 

[Ilminded]

Liquid phosphate or root phosphate? I was planning on oto's to aid in leaf algae. I'm not in mindset of snails but was getting Cory's and cockatoo cichlids. Would shrimp survive with them? My big lfs had tons of cherry shrimp for sale on Friday.

 

[Rivercats]

If you balance your light/CO2/ferts out you won't have much if any algae. I'm talking about dry ferts as I don't use any liquids. Remember with higher light and CO2 your plants are going to grow more and will need a good macro and micro fert dosing regime IMO. Dry ferts using either PPS-Pro or El isn't hard and the ferts aren't expensive and last a long time.

I imagine they would eat baby shrimp but I was talking about amano shrimp for algae.

 

[Ilminded]

I plan on using dry ferts and will be paying close attention for first month once tank is together about fert dosing and CO2 levels. I plan of having tank going before I start purchasing fish and putting them in quarantine. 2 months until I will introduce cardinal tetras into the tank, with 3 week time frames for QTank for new additions, ending with my cichlids at the end. I have goals in my house, baby on way, and once I reach these goals I figured I could "treat" myself to getting the equipment