Lighting Advice

[4fish]

Hello, I am new to this group. I plan on setting up a 75 gallon freshwater
heavily planted aquarium. The plants I want to grow will be high light plants.
This is going to be a heavily planted tank. I do plan on setting up a pressurized
CO2 system. What light fixture would be best for this tank? Also I am going to
use T-5 HO lights. What bulbs would be best? Also how many watts of this
light per gallon to support the plant growth? I will also be dosing with Macronutrients and Micronutrients and Iron. Also what would be a good CO2 system? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[SKB]

to the forum!!

I cant suggest a specific bulb to you, but they usually say 2 watts per gallon for a planted tank. Good luck!

 

[armymp327]

watts per gallon is an obsolete rule that only applied to T12 lights, give this article a read, it will tell you everything you need to know about the new system, and what lights you should get to put you in the high light range.

Lighting an Aquarium with PAR instead of Watts

 

[Old Scales]

If you are going high tech with high light plants and considering the height of your tank, you should go with no less than quad tube T5HO. ATI and aquaticlife are considered two of the top quality and performing brands. They are said to have the best reflector designs. Also many state that Geiseman 6000k tubes are the best T5HO's on the market.
High lights will make the plants demand more CO2 and ferts. Check out green leaf aquarium's PPS-Pro dry ferts. OS.

 

[MyanRan]

+1 to OS. He's got some great suggestions on brands right there. If you can't find PAR data on a light, (after reading that article) you can always ask the manufacturer directly.

 

[aqua_chem]

What's your budget for this? Skipping straight to the $500 fixtures seems pretty optimistic.

 

[EndlersEatGuppies]

Like aqua_chem said, How much do you want to spend?

You can get a top of the line light fixture for $500, top of the line Co2 system for $380, and Dry Ferts for $30 which is $900 on your first planted tank.

If you have not purchased the tank yet I would recommend to get a 10-30g and do a low tech setup, and see how much you like the whole planted tank thing. There are the people that love it and will die for it but there are the others that GO BIG and end up not liking it because of all the work in a High Tech tank. Choose wisely!

 

[Old Scales]

I "economized" when I first set up my 29g tetra tank on light fixture. I knew I wanted to go with medium to advanced plants but wasn't a member of this AA forum and didn't have the real facts of it all. I found out the hard way that the "facts" stated by some of these light fixtures companies was BS hype. I ended up having to rebuy the quality fixture I really needed and ended up costing me ALOT more than if I would have gotten the top line one first. Do your research, decide how advanced you want to go first. It will save you money in the long run. Good Luck, OS.

 

[Rokuzachi]

I used the guide linked above to light my 100g and it worked wonderfully.

While I'm here I'll also say that for the price, Catalina light fixtures are pretty great.