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I am looking to upgrade my lighting fixture on my 29 gallon and i'm looking at the 30" Coralife 1/65W CF Freshwater Aqualight and the All-Glass 1/55W CF. I have plants such as Java Fern,Wisteria, Dwarf Sag, Crypt Wendtii, and Crypt Lutia. The plants are thriving but are growing slow and the tank is too dark in my opinion to show off my fish. Any recommendations on which light fixture to get? The Coralife is 6700K and the All-Glass is 9325K i believe. I am not planning on using CO2. Thanks!

I would go with the Coralife 65W. The K rating is better in my opinion for the plants. The plants that you listed are fairly slow growing with the exception of maybe the wisteria so don't expect them to just start shooting up even with the increased lighting without the use of CO2.

One thing to be aware of is unless the tank is heavily planted you may experience an onset of heavy algae growth with the increased lighting also. Also as your plants will need an adjustment period to the higher lighting this may also cause some initial problems with them. You may want to reduce the number of hours you have the light on initially.

Jim

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Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. -- Mark Twain

I would like to add that unless you add CO2 and ferts along with that light, you probably won't see a huge improvement in plant growth. Those are all pretty slow growing plants.

Unless you want to try out higher light plants I'd recommend not trying to fix something that isn't broken. If you are wanting to try out new higher light plants I say go for it.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Alot of the reason i want to upgrade is to make the tank look brighter and show the fish off better. It's not just for the plants. Right now the tank looks kind of dark. I have 2W per gallon on my 15 gallon and the tank looks so much nicer. Any other thoughts?

Hi,
I have a 30G tank and I use the 65 watt 6700K bulb. I have
slow growing crypts in the tank and to offset them I have
wisteria and another fast growing stem plant. Every week
I throw away trimmings. Personally, I'd not shift to
the 9K bulb.

Frank


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