Plant/lighting

[Ursi]

Apologies if this is in the wrong section.

I have a 39 us gallon planted tank, I use flora base and I have two 39w t5 max light bulbs which are on around 10 hours a day. I've just added some new plants, but my ultimate question is what kind of lighting is this? Med/high? Am I right in working out that 151 litres with those bulbs means there is 1.9watts per litre?

The plants I got today are ludwigia glandulosa




And alternanthera reineckii





I want to avoid these plants turning green if I can, I add a daily fertiliser, and that's pretty much it, I don't run any co2 but will look into it if it is going to benefit the plants (I have a number of real plants but don't know all names)
If anyone has any advice on my lighting etc, if be grateful. Thanks.

 

[Dallascowboys16]

Lighting

I run my planted tank at two wpg as well and I Belive that its in the medium light range. As for the plants staying red you need to get an iron supplement. I recommend flouris. The plants look good and pm me with any questions. Good luck.

 

[Ursi]

I run my planted tank at two wpg as well and I Belive that its in the medium light range. As for the plants staying red you need to get an iron supplement. I recommend flouris. The plants look good and pm me with any questions. Good luck.

Ah thank you! I will go and get some flouris if I can get it if not ill get something similar, thanks

 

[aqua_chem]

Wpg is a really bad metric that hasn't been taking seriously for many years now. You have T5HO on a medium sized tank, so you will likely have enough light to do much of what you want to do. Squeezing the most color out of your plants is heavily dependent in a number of factors other than light that need to be looked after, with co2 and proper supplementation both being extremely important. The good news is that you have pick two of the easier species to keep red. If you are unwilling to pursue co2, I highly recommend you looking into Excel, which is a co2 alternative sold by Seachem. It will help you tank along significantly, probably more than anything else will at this point. If you are especially concerned with milking color out of your tank, you can look at buying better (ie more expensive) bulbs. The Giesemann line of bulbs are renown for their ability to bring out color in plants, an I can personally attest to their ability to do so.

 

[Ursi]

Wpg is a really bad metric that hasn't been taking seriously for many years now. You have T5HO on a medium sized tank, so you will likely have enough light to do much of what you want to do. Squeezing the most color out of your plants is heavily dependent in a number of factors other than light that need to be looked after, with co2 and proper supplementation both being extremely important. The good news is that you have pick two of the easier species to keep red. If you are unwilling to pursue co2, I highly recommend you looking into Excel, which is a co2 alternative sold by Seachem. It will help you tank along significantly, probably more than anything else will at this point. If you are especially concerned with milking color out of your tank, you can look at buying better (ie more expensive) bulbs. The Giesemann line of bulbs are renown for their ability to bring out color in plants, an I can personally attest to their ability to do so.

Co2 isn't an option at the moment as I can't afford it, excel, is that available in the uk or is it best to get it online? I'm happy with the bulbs I have now, I may decide to change them further down the line but not yet. Thanks for the help!