Quick Lighting Question

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bballsosh

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Nov 19, 2006
Messages
135
Location
Parkland, FL
I have a 54 gallon corner tank and have a 24in coralife fixture with 2 65 watt bulbs making a total of 130 watts and the bulb is a 6500k. What king of lighting would this give and would i need pressurized c02 for this tank. Will i be able to grow hc in this tank. Thanks
 
I'm no expert, but it sounds like you've got adequate lighting for low to medium light plants. Keep in mind that none of the lighting requirements are hard and fast, black and white ratings. I've got about the same lighting as you've got, and I've got some plants that came with "requires high light" tags that are growing perfectly well. I'm not running CO2 and I'm not having any algae outbreaks (at the moment). I've got a 4" pleco that keeps the tank algae free, and I keep a careful watch on my feedings and careful watch on the substrate to make sure there's not a bunch of uneaten food laying around.

The 6500k color bulb is good, as well. I'm running 6400k CF bulbs, and all my plants seem to grow like crazy with this new fixture. I've gotten about 2 inches of new growth on the top of my moneywort since I bought it a month or so ago.

As I said, I don't have any CO2 system, but I do have a 10" Walmart bubblewand that makes teeny tiny pinprick bubbles hooked up to a standard air pump. This helps keep CO2 at atmospheric levels and buffers against a complete dropout of CO2 which would cause an algae spike.
 
That lighting will put you well over 2 wpg. I would think that you very well may need CO2. The plants and the algae will let you know. You should be able to grow all but the really high light plants. If you do try higher light plants the CO2 becomes more of a necessity.
 
I would say you would need CO2....I've been getting away with DIY on a high light 55 for a while but not really sure how. At 130 watts 2-3 2 liter yeast bottles should help out a lot. There's nothing like CO2 for keeping the algae under control.

Corner tanks are hard to light....you've got decent light but the fixture is short. With that light and no CO2 I doubt the HC would like you.

The 6500K bulbs are fine, I started with 2 6500K and now have 1 6500K and 1 10000K, I have blue fish so the 10000K brings out the blue a little more. Really any bulb between those numbers will be just fine.
 
Thanks guys,

I have some extra money so i am probably going to buy pressurized co2 ( I cant stand Diy). Do you have any suggestion on where i can get a nice deal on pressurized c02. I would really like to buy a set so that i dont have to go lookinga round for every piece. With all of this the lighting and pressurized c02 i am either goind to try glosso or hc.
 
I would recommend buying a custom built regulator from Rex Griggs or a Milwaukee from the Aquarium Supply Store. The only other thing that you should need is a CO2 Cylindar locally. It's good to buy the tank locally since you'll have to get it filled locally, and some stores will only fill tanks bought from them or have special pricing for their tanks.
 
You'd need some airline or CO2 tubing and a check valve is highly recommended (both of which you may already have on hand). Optionally you could also pick up either a timer or a pH controller to hook the selonoid to in order to control when the CO2 is injected.

If you want to use a paintball CO2 cylinder you would need a regulator specifically for paintball cylinders. Both of the regulators I linked would be used with a regulator CO2 cylinder and not a paintbal cylinder. I believe that Red Sea makes a regulator for paintball cylinders.
 
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