Lighting questions

[bruha101]

I currently have a 2 light setup on my 40g... 24wX2 life glo 6500k lights and a 20w single with a full spectrum. I run the lights for 8 to 10 hours a day. My question is if I would upgrade to a 150w mh would I have to use Co2 my plants are doing very well with the current light setup. The only reason I want to change is I also. Have a 30g that I am going to convert to a planted tank and I would use by current light setup on my other tank. Any advice here would be appreciated.

 

[BigJim]

A 150W MH light would require pressurized CO2 on a 40g. You're approaching 4 Wpg of intense light. It'd require a good fert regimen and probably daily trimming too.

 

[fort384]

Agree with Jim. Also it appears you have some non-aquatic plants in your tank...

fwiw, I had about 4wpg on 1 of my tanks... and it required heavy dosing and lots of CO2. I trimmed tons of plant mass out of the tank each week. It was beautiful, but a lot of work.

 

[bruha101]

Ok so that may be going a little more than I want to go for now. Thanks for the heads up guys. What plants are non aquatic?? Everything seems to be doing Ok so far

 

[fort384]

The plants on the far right look like Ophiopogon japonica to me... unfortunately not aquatic plants. I could be wrong... it is a small picture. But that's what it looks like to me.

 

[bruha101]

Is this the one you mean?

 

[fort384]

I was talking about the green one on the right in the pic above. In that pic, it looks more like vallisneria than Ophiopogon japonica which should be fine. Still can't tell 100% though...

 

[bruha101]

I looked it up and I believe u are correct it looks almost exactly like mondo grass so I removed it this morning