What plants are these ?

[candymancan]

Well, I honestly don't know what you guys are talking about for the lighting... A lot of people say to use this and that light, but you guys do realize that pink lights are the best to grow plants right ? Red and Blue spectrums... Colormax, may be a "colormax" light but its spectrum is really high in red's in the 600-700nm range, and same for its blue spectrum its a pink bulb... The other bulb I have tho is a Full spectrum light but that's only because they don't make 15 inch bulb's anymore... Home depot, lowes, fish stores.. Online no one makes or sells them anymore so im stuck using that white bulb.. It has no red spectrum but it does have a high blue spectrum..

I know a guy with a 220 gallon tank on youtube, who has only 140w of light in his tank which is under 1 wat per gallon and he grows plants like mad.. hes using pink bulbs tho..

So im not trying to bash anyone here in the thread you do know more about plants then me for the most part but I really don't think you need extremely high watts per gallon to grow or maintain color on plants... but we will see..

Question, my 15 inch lamp.. It uses 15 inch 15 watt florescent bulbs.. Could I simply open the lamp.. and pull out one of the ballest tabs that the lamps click into and extend it to work with 18 inch bulbs ? That way I can get rid of this darn full spectrum bulb and go with a bulb that has both red and blue spectrums ? It will be an 18 inch over 15 inches that it was made for but both bulbs are 15 watts. Or would this cause the bulb to explode ? Or do you think it would make my tank look weird with 2 pink bulbs ?

Anyway, I got some API root tabs, but they made my tanks extremely cloudy I don't think you can use root tabs with an undergravel filter.. lol but yea. Im using the co2 booster everyday in my tanks, the flourish im using 2x a week and the leaf zone 1x a week.. My red nesaea are growing they are growing new leaves on top and they are sprouting roots out of the middle of the stems in mid water.. I forgot what that's called.. They are also holding there color.. The right one is still blood red, and the left one is still orange to blood red like it was when I got it..

Those Limnophila hippuroides, are also holding their color's.. They are growing as well.. I can see the new leaves sprouting open on top and blooming like a flower does when it opens up.. They are half green half pink/purple still.. Mostly purple on the bottom of the leaves.. But these plants have been in my tanks for 2 weeks now... And here is a updated picture of the 2 in my 27g hex See how much purple/pink it has in it ? I admit it doesn't look quiet as beautiful as yours but mine are also still newely planted.. I wish I could fast forward time and see what they will look like in 2-3 months.. but rest assured I will keep regular updates.. These 2 down here in this pic are in my hexagon tank.. the ones in my first pic on the first page are from the 30 gallon 1-2 weeks ago...

 

[azmodan]

Most on this forum agree that watts per gallon is no longer a very accurate way of measuring the amount of light we need for our plants. PAR is generally used most frequently, and you are very correct that the color spectrum plays a very important role in non-green plants. More will surely chime in on that but in the meantime here's some essential reading for planted tank enthusiasts: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184368

 

[tropicalmackdaddy]

Most on this forum agree that watts per gallon is no longer a very accurate way of measuring the amount of light we need for our plants. PAR is generally used most frequently, and you are very correct that the color spectrum plays a very important role in non-green plants. More will surely chime in on that but in the meantime here's some essential reading for planted tank enthusiasts: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=184368

+1 there is still much bate on what really makes a plant 'red'. Tins of read over on TPT

 

[candymancan]

Well I decided to get one more light fixture just because they aren't that expensive.. I now have 3 T8 lights over my 27g hexagon.. personally I think that is overkill... But it does look really nice to the eye.. I have 2 18 inch T8 15w bulbs now.. One is a Colormax the other is a Flora Max.. Both pink bulbs.. both have high blue and red wavelengths.. The color max has a big spike in the 600-610 range and medium through up to 700.. The Floramax has a giant spike in the 650 range for red.. Both are similier for blue..

The third light is my old 15 inch lamp that uses a Full spectrum bulb (that's all they make ANYWHERE for 15 inch lights now.. it has nothing really in the red spectrum but it does a giant spike in the blue.. Plus it looks pleasing to the eye combined with the 2 pink lights I have.. In essence I now have 1.6-1.7 watts per gallon.. It isn't going to get better then that, as my tank is only like 18 inchs wide and im not spending $100-200-300 on led's or anything fancy...

Also those Limnophila hippuroides plants in my picture above.. I mentioned yesterday they were blooming with new leaves on top which you can see in the picture.. with the lights off last night when I woke up this morning and turned them on they bloomed and opened up into tons of small leaves overnight and looked really pretty but they were solid green... However now that my lights have been on for 4-6 hours they are now turning pink/purple... And that is with only 2 lights.. So yea I think the whole watt per gallon thing is a big myth.. its the color spectrum of the bulbs.. not how bright your lighting is to the naked eye.

Look this pictures explains it all without words... Go on google and type in pink lighting for growing plants.. and youll see

 

[jetajockey]

I don't think anyone says you can't use pink bulbs for growth, they make aquarium 'plant' bulbs that are red/pinkish. The reason why people don't typically advise them is because they aren't very aesthetically pleasing to look at. So a full spectrum daylight bulb is a good compromise since it's a white light that has both blues and reds.

I do believe you are highly overestimating the ability of your T8's though. T8's are good fixtures but t5's are much better. I started with t8's on my plant growout tanks and ended up going to t5ho's for more reliable and better looking growth. My biggest issue was getting adequate light down to the substrate level.

 

[candymancan]

I don't think anyone says you can't use pink bulbs for growth, they make aquarium 'plant' bulbs that are red/pinkish. The reason why people don't typically advise them is because they aren't very aesthetically pleasing to look at. So a full spectrum daylight bulb is a good compromise since it's a white light that has both blues and reds.

I do believe you are highly overestimating the ability of your T8's though. T8's are good fixtures but t5's are much better. I started with t8's on my plant growout tanks and ended up going to t5ho's for more reliable and better looking growth. My biggest issue was getting adequate light down to the substrate level.

No one sells t5's that are 15-18 inches, or the fixtures for them in any LFS big chain fish store, or lowes or home depot so I have to use the T8's.. It sucks having a narrow tank like my hexagon.. Like I said tho for the 30 long gallon I bought the 36 inch duel t5 light fixture and replaced that single t8 24 inch that was original lol.. I think what im doing is fine. See the problem you gatta remember is my tank is only 18 inches wide... That's as short as a 5.5 gallon tank almost.. lol... No one sells florescent bulbs that small.. And I don't want to spend hundreds on a fixture

As for full spectrum, that depends on the brand you buy, the Aqueon full spectrum has no reds to speak of, only blue... Its an 8K bulb.. The 6700k daylight bulbs from aqueon are only t5 bulbs those yes do have red and blue.. There is another brand tho that makes bulbs petco sells them I forgot there name but they have brands called like tropical sun, and evening sunlight and so forth.. those are 5500-6700k bulbs with reds... But I think the Aqueon Colormax and Leaf max have a better mixture of reds and oranges in the 600-700 frequency.

Your right about how the pink bulbs look, altho Ive had my tank for 13 years using only a single 15 inch colormax (way before I knew anything about lights or used live plants lol) and I rather like the way the pink looks over a single full spectrum bulb.. the 8,000k full spectrum I have makes the water and everything look yellow probably because of my driftwood.. But with 2 pink bulbs and 1 full spectrum the tank looks more like daylight when you walk out your door.. Doesn't look pink, nore yellow but more of a soft white.. And all my plants look irradiated green, and my fish all show the sparkles from there scales, and my rainbows like the Neon dwarf rainbows and my Celebes rainbows are all shining and showing red's and blues when they swim around (or neon green in the Celebes case)