# Ugrading Lighting and related questions



## windchill (Aug 2, 2006)

55 gallon. Eco complete substrate. 2x 55w 6700K CF lights. Tetras and rasboras are the majority of fish, plus 3 cories, and 5 otos.

Java Moss is doing great. Other plants are Wisteria, Aponogeton Natans, another type of Aponogeton, and 2 lilys from walmart bulbs. The hornwort? (thin leaves like pine needles really close together) died within a month. Leaves turned yellow and fell off. One teeny little piece survives tangled in the top of the java moss (which is nearly a foot tall in spots now).

The rest of the plants were doing great at first, but then growth stopped. So I began using florish. Another burst of plant growth then it stopped. Yesterday, the 2nd tall leaf on one of my lily plants just up and like melted. This happened overnight. Any clues as to why?

According to those "figure out your CO2" chart thingys It seems my CO2 is around 10 - 13 ppm. Is that too low? Are those chart things accurate. I dont understand how C02 gets in there to begin with....

I am upgrading the lighting on my 55. I can use these on my 2 20 gallon tanks. Some plants I want to add need higher light.

What I bought was the 2 x 96watt ahsuppy kit. The bulbs are the 6700K (OH, they have some of their compacts on sale right now if anyone else uses them). The lights that are on sale are about $5 cheaper.

Am I am going to need C02 because I will be pushing 4 wpg? If so, it would have to be DIY; so what is my window of opportunity between light setup and absolutly needing the CO2 flowing?

Am I going to get a huge algae bloom when I bump up the lighting, or because I have plants in there established, am I likely to avoid the bloom?

Thanks


----------



## Fishboy93 (Jun 11, 2005)

Since your running 3.5 wpg C02 is essential otherwise you will have a terrible algae bloom. DIY might not produce enough though. How many hours do you plan to have the lights running with the new lights? You may also enjoy aquaticplantcentral.com's fertilator for further research if you plan to dose ferts.


----------



## windchill (Aug 2, 2006)

Fishboy93 said:


> Since your running 3.5 wpg C02 is essential otherwise you will have a terrible algae bloom. DIY might not produce enough though. How many hours do you plan to have the lights running with the new lights? You may also enjoy aquaticplantcentral.com's fertilator for further research if you plan to dose ferts.


I was thinking of keeping the 96 watt lights on for around 6 hours a day. I havent decided whether I am gonna split the two big lights onto switches so I can turn one on earlier, and the other for 4-6 hours for the full blast of daylight. 

The hood I am building is going to have other lights. Right now I am planning on two 23 watt screw in bulbs (the replacement cf bulbs for regular bulbs). I also have some extra room to add two more lights if the two smaller bulbs dont give me enough viewing light. Home depot had some of these in a closer to what I need K (I think 5500 but not sure) and the price was within reason. The hood is also gonna hang over the tank rather than sit on top, so I am hoping this will help keep the lights from heating up the tank as much.

I checked out aquaticplantcentral and there is very useful info there, so thanks for that heads up. But the Fertilator was taking way too long to load, so I didnt get to view that part of the site. Any suggestions on that issue would be apreciated, even if its to an equavalent excel/spreadsheet/graph.


----------

