RubixCube
Aquarium Advice Activist
Are power compacts recomended for a FW tank? Its a cichlid tank with live plants..48 gal
freshwater and power compacts.
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
rich311k
Aquarium Advice Addict
You can use PC lighting on freshwater tanks. Thats one of the ways to get high lighting. I have it.
Devilishturtles
Aquarium Advice Addict
I agree with Rich. You can add PC lighting if you'd like, as a high light source for your tank and plants. Nothing at all wrong with it.
Apocalypse_Gold
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Some pc bulbs are 50% actinic, which doesn't really help plants, and may promote algae. Other than that, pc should work great.
greenmaji
Aquarium Advice Addict
actinic lighting promoting algae is a misnormer.. but yes it doesnt do much for plant growth, IMO ist a way of using PC lighting and limiting the watts per gallon so you dont have to go to high light needing the CO2 and such..
well the thing with live plants in an aquarium is that you want to give them optimal conditions so that they can out compete algae for nutrients. With actinics, the light that they provide is not very useful for the plants in the tank, but some algae can use this small amount of light to cause problems. So, I have seen plant tanks with actinics (with normal daylight bulbs)do ok, it is just not a great thing to do. especially because of the light intensity of pc's.
But yes, pc's are great for plants as long as you get them in and acceptable color(kelvin temperature), common freshwater pc bulbs are great and most are in the 6500k range which is good for plants.
But yes, pc's are great for plants as long as you get them in and acceptable color(kelvin temperature), common freshwater pc bulbs are great and most are in the 6500k range which is good for plants.
odobenus
Aquarium Advice Activist
With NO lights there is a general rule: less than 2 or 2.5 wpg is a low-light tank, more than that is a high-light tank and you probably need CO2. Is there a similar rule or cut off for pc's?
rich311k
Aquarium Advice Addict
Same rules for PC lighting.
malkore
Aquarium Advice Addict
Yep, except you can cheat a little.rich311k said:
and technically it's:
1wpg = low
2wpg = medium
3wpg = high
but at 2.5wpg of PC's you're in the high light category. with 3wpg you should be able to grow any plant if you have PC's. if you have NO tubes, then you may need to bump to 3.5wpg for a few particular species.
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