Lighting a 90 gal FW tank

[jschimm]

I am on the verge of adding water and starting my fishless cycle. I just received my Universal Rocks flexible 3d background and will be installing tonight. I plan on filling and emptying the tank a few times Saturday morning, then filling it and starting my fishless cycle. I have spent a boat load of money so far and am looking at lighting for my tank. I figure I have a few weeks before I really need one. I'm starting with artificial silk plants, but would like to eventually move into low light/low tech plants. I've been checking out LED lights on line. Just curious as the tank is 24" deep and 48" long. I just have a hard time looking at $500-600 options. What's sufficient for low light plants? Many low light plants require 2 watts per gallon=180 watts in my case minimum. Of course LED's are rated in lumens, but I'll dig into that conversion. Just curious to hear from other big tank, low light planted tank folks as to what has worked for them. Thanks.

 

[armymp327]

the watt per gallon rule is obsolete, even more so for bigger tanks like yours. Have a look at this article, a must read for anyone in the hobby interested in lighting, it will explain to you PAR values which is the new standard for figuring out how much light you have/need.

Lighting an Aquarium with PAR instead of Watts