lighting for dummies

[Monkey Magic]

ahoy pretty new to planted tanks and i wanted more information on lighting for my 40 gal planted currently in progress.

what makes an aquarium a high light or low light is their a formula you can use to calculate this like one gallon per one watt or something along those lines?? can the light be to high for an aquarium if you dont have enough plants in it?

I also keep reading threads about lighting spectrums but dont know enough about what the spectrum is to fully comprehend whats being discussed.

And gh and kh???

can anyone give me a watered down version because everything ive looked at on google goes into way to much detail. That or any links which are for beginners.

thanks

 

[JokerWx13]

there is such a thing as too little or too much light and it all depends on what's in your tank: what types of plant u wish to put in, or if you run co2
too low of a light and your plants could die but too high of a light could lead to algae blooms that might be hard to get rid of.

usually how strong your light is depends on the wpg(watts per gallon) rule. this rule doesn't really apply for t5 lighting because their bulbs are much brighter than their t8(fluorescent) counterparts.

for the color spectrum, plants enjoy red and blue lights the most since they are more efficient in getting light from those colors than green or yellow(that's why plant leaves are green)

any questions you can ask away or if you need help in breaking anything down tell me

 

[Monkey Magic]

Thanks for the reply
I currently run 2 24 w t5globes along with one white 15w and a blue 15 w t5 i put the 15 watts in because i didnt know how much was too much and also i didnt have alot of plants in at the time it currently has about 15 or so plants in their at the moment but i feel thy could be doing better than they are. I have co2 in the tank but im manually operating it at the moment while waiting for a solenoid so at the moment it dosent get a consistant amount daily. I can up the wattage on the lights i have 2 more 24 watts or dose flourish is their anyway to gauge how much light in watts my tank should have?? I will be slowly adding more plants in the coming weeks.

 

[JokerWx13]

you should aim for around 1.5wpg for t5 bulbs and it's good to hear that you know that the co2 must be consistent. when everything's up and running properly, i would love to see pics