Lighting Question

[Bosk]

Greetings,

I'm planning on buying an 8 gallon 60x20x25cm tank and want to keep a few varieties of live plants in there.

I have read that I should have rougly double the amount of watts in lighting as i have gallons, but with too much lighting i will need to add CO2 which I would rather avoid doing until I have more experience under my belt.

I was thinking of buying an aquarium lamp with 15 watts of power, would this be the ideal number or should i go lower or higher?

Thanks!

[BrianNY]

IME you can get away with 1.5 wpg without causing an algae problem. Any more wpg is likely to grow some great algae without CO2. I would suggest using a single flourescent strip light.

[Bosk]

Thanks for the advice

it sounds like i'll be a shade over that so i might need to look at CO2. is setting up a CO2 system generally much trouble/expense?

thanks!

[extremenewb]

Seachem Flourish Excel??

[SteveM]

I think CO2 on a tank that small is pretty easy to set up if you don't mind changing the ingredients every couple weeks. See this article for your options:

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/showqu...q=2&fldAuto=41

I have 1.75 wpg on my 75G tank with no CO2 and I do, in fact, grow some great algae. I'm slowly getting a handle on it as I learn more about nutrients and my 2 BN plec feast away at it. I think you can do a 2wpg without CO2, but from all I've read CO2 just makes things easier for a planted tank.

Of course, now that I think of it I also grow some really great algae in my 12G with 1wpg, especially now that I've moved the oto and snail out of it