Lighting Strategy

[SwampeastMike]

After six months just removed all the plastic from my 180-gallon. Yay!

All plants are fully established but not yet fully grown.

The tank surface is 6' x 2'.

There is a very active bubble wall along the entire back lit with 50W of full-spectrum LED. The bubbles do a wonderful job of scattering the light but this will reduce as the tall plantings in the corners mature.

The left 1/3 is for moderate and lower light plants while the right third is for higher light. At present I have a 26W LED on each side with the one of the left partly obscured by a wide center brace.

All lights currently set for 12 hours.

Have additional LED fixtures available.

At present I'd call the planting "light" but it will be moderate when mature.

I have no previous experience with LED lamps on aquariums and wonder if this "base" of about 100W of LED lighting is sufficient.

Suspect I should add some more to the high lighting side but don't want to encourage excessive algae.

Is it a good idea to add additional (say another 20-40W) for a shorter period than the main lights? Perhaps five hours in the middle of the twelve?

 

[SwampeastMike]

Here's a picture of the tank lit with every LED fixture I have. About 150 watts total. Know it's difficult to judge via a photo but what do you think of the light level? Photo from a professional camera with proper exposure and other than cropping exactly as produced.