Light fixture combination

[chadthedad]

This is for a 75 gallon freshwater community tank. I'm thinking about moving into the live plant arena with some low light hardy plants that don't require C02. I am currently running a dual tube fixture with one 10K bulb and one actinic bulb. Both bulbs are 40w. I have read that actinic bulbs don't do anything for plants so my total light wattage now is 40w. I was thinking about adding a dual tube shop light to the canopy to bring the watts per gallon up. Can I put another 10K and actinic in there to keep the lighting effect the same and still have a little over 1w per gallon? Also will a $10 48" shoplight work for an aquarium?

 

[newfound77951]

You might be able to grow some plants with 1 wpg. The actinics do count for a little (I've heard between 10 and 20% of what a "regular" bulb with the same wattage would do). I have 50:50 bulbs on my 55g and I feel like I've got a little more wattage (based on plant growth) on there than I should have if I don't count the actinics.

You could certainly use the shop light. And if the 1 wpg isn't quite enough you could always switch out one of the actinics which would bump you up to 1.5 wpg or so, and you still wouldn't need CO2.

As for plants, Crypts, Anubias, Java fern and moss and maybe Anacharis should do fine for you.