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I have two 15 watt 24inch lights on a 50 gal. tank. My nitrate level is 0. What type of light should I use? Or should I just ad more fish. (java fern, some wendtii and other various low oight plants)

2 balas
13 white clouds
6 corys
3 kuhlis
3 otos

Sorry but with that lighting you are basically trying to grow plants in the dark

You only have about 0.5 watts per gallon of water. Very little will grow in that. This problem is compounded by the fact that it's 15w bulbs which are weaker in intensity. One 30 watt bulb would probably give you more intensity.

With that size tank you need to be aiming for 50-100 watts of light total. 50 watts with allow you to grow selected low light plants. 100 watts will put you in the moderate range and a far wider choice of plants that will work.

Lack of light is your issue, more fish or fertilizers will not make up for that lack and will only give further more serious issues.

Plain old flourescent bulbs will do, just make sure they are daylight and not soft white. You can buy these in any hardware store , no need for fancy bulbs from the lfs. A couple of shoplight fixtures and your away, doesn't have to be expensive or fancy

Also very confused as to why your nitrate is zero if the plants are not growing. Normally in a planted tank the lack of nitrates would be the reason for the plants not growing. But in your set up with the amount of light, species of plant and the fish stock it would be very very unusual to need to add nitrates (nitrates need to be kept at a minimum of 5ppm for plant growth). I would be very nervous about advising the addition of Nitrate in case you just have a dodgy test kit.

The plants you list are all slow growers at the best of times especially in such low light. Are they not growing or are they dying ? If they are otherwise healthy but just growing very slowly well it's simply the lack of light. More light will speed growth up.

I would check your nitates again (maybe ask the lfs to do a check for you) or check if your test kit is still good. If they are indeed zero, you need to get them up.

HTH.

Last edited by bensaf at 12-Apr-2005 01:46

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lowlight

I cannot add any more to what Bernard has said except your name tag is the answer "lowlight"

Keith

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I checked my nitrates again and according to the test strip chart my nitrates are at 20 ppm. (could explain the brown beard alge. My plants are not dying so I guess there just growing Slloooowwwww. I will look into the highr wattage since I going to custom build a tank cover to cover up the lights and filters. Thank you for the replys.