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Ok, I'm going nuts trying to find out how much light I need to support live plants. I have had live plants in a 55 gal years ago and they grew so vigorously I had to cut them back contstantly.

Now I have a 125 gallon, and I can't keep anything but algae alive. I know I don't have enough light, but I cannot find anything showing me how much I need. The problem is that with 125 gallons, the difference between 2 and 4 watts per gallon is $300! So I don't want to get more than I have to.

My tank is 5 feet long, 2 ft high, and 1 1/2 feet deep (wide). I would LOVE to have thickly planted aquarium again, but don't want to spend $600 on lights if I can help it. I was hoping to spend no more than half that. Any suggestions?!?!?!

Well it all depends on what plants you want. There are lots of plants that'll do fine in 2 wpg, but you'll have more options with 4 wpg, (obviously). In 2 wpg you can probably grow all low light plants and even a few medium light plants.

Check out this link, it lets you browse through plants according to their light requirements. So you can find some plants you like and upgrade your lighting to suit them.

http://www.plantgeek.net/plantguide.php

Hi,
Plants are generally grouped into floating, and
non-floating. This is common sense. But, they are
also grouped by how much light they need to grow
and this is based on the environment that they come
from.
Low light plants (.5-2 watt/gallon) are plants that
are shaded from the tropical noonday sun constantly.
Medium demand plants (2-3 watts/gallon) get partial
sun during day but are in the shade most of the time.
High demand plants (3+ watts/gallon) are out in the
open and get sun all day long.

It would make sense to decide on the lighting for the
tank first. For a 125, you could use 6 ft flourscent
bulbs in a shoplight strip, or you could use metal
halide pendant style lights, or you could use compact
flourscent bulbs, or you could use the fancy T-5
tubes in a strip. Since it sounds like $$ is the
limiting factor, go to a hardware store of some type
and purchase a couple of two tube, 6 foot, flourscent,
shop lights and use either DAYLIGHT or SUNLIGHT labeled
bulbs in the strips. You will need a glass cover between
the strips and the water as they are subject to corrosion
from the splashing of the water and condensation once
the lights are turned off.

Figure out your total watts/gallon, and THEN purchase
only those plants that fall into your watts/gallon
grouping.

If you fall in the middle, then you can
draw from the medium and low light plants, if you
should fall in the high then you can choose from all
three but plant those in the low light demand group
only in areas shaded by long stemed plants in the
higher groups.

Hope that helps...
Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Frank has a great point. SHOPLIGHTS.

My step-dad has shoplights over his 120 gallon.. Shoplights are CHEAP.. You can light your tank up like Christmas for under $100.



The Amazon Nut...

just buy any reflector from any hardware shop and buy some
plant tubes from the lfs, the reflector doesn't really
matter too much.

i have a 15G planted with no lights at all, but the tank is
in my sunroom so it receives plenty of indirect sunlight
everyday. all my plants look absoutely great.

If you buy "plant tubes" from a pet store, you'll pay two or three times the cost of almost identical bulbs from a hardware store. Like Frank said, just go to a hardware store and look for bulbs marked "sunlight" or "daylight", your plants'll be happy and so will your wallet.

the tubes from hardware store usually dont have as high K temp rating as the ones sold in lfs tho. thats not really a big thing, just wanted to point it out.

i just built a hood myself 1 week ago, i designed it so the hood can hold 8+ compact fluorescent bulbs if i want to do that. just buy a board, start cutting, glueing and nailing, and buy those bulb sockets for 2 dollars each, and bulbs for 7 dollars (20 watts) thats 9 dollars for 20 watts. so for your 125 gallon that'll be less than 65 bucks plus the boards, some wires, and the building materials. if your tank is about 5 feet x 1.5, then you can probably just add bulbs like crazy, a bulb plus socket takes up 3x7=21 inch square, and you have about 1080 inch square... i am thinking if you wanna go nuts and put 40+ bulbs on top of that, you may go ahead. o0o0o0o 40x20=800 watts!!!! thats 6+wpg

you can paint your hood too so it reflects, you can design it so it holds a ton of bulbs. its pretty easy to build the hood, all i had was a hacksaw, screws, a screw driver, and some wood glue, and it was my first wood project. ]


ps. some shoplights are not too efficient, some decreases the life of light strips, magnetic ballast ones are 1/2 as good as electronic ones


[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-17 03:42][/span]

[span class="edited"][Edited by 2004-07-17 03:44][/span]