# sunlight question



## spectrecat (Apr 15, 2005)

I'm mostly a newbie when it comes to aquatic plants. I'm so glad to found out about those "non-aquatic" plants from petsmart....I just thought I couldn't keep anything alive. thanks for that sticky!

Anyway, we're setting up our 10 gal again, and I would love to have live plants this time. I have your basic 10 gal hood, but I've planned on upgrading the bulbs. My question is about sunlight.

I plan to go with plants that are hardy and don't take a lot of light or work. We have two locations in our house (recently moved) that we are considering for the 10 gal. My first choice, receives some almost direct sunlight for about half of the day. There are curtains on the windows, and the tank would be at least 10 feet away from them. The other location doesn't really receive any sunlight. Could the sunlight be an issue or is it not direct enough?


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## ZebraDanio12 (Jun 17, 2011)

Actually sunlight can cause algea. lots of it too and its really gross. 2-3 watts pergallon is generally moderate to high lighting depending on the plant. Wisteria and amazon swords do good in low light(or high) and need trimmings pretty quikly. get higher watt bulbs and you should be good.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Direct sunlight also carries infrared radiation in it which heats up the water. This can be a problem. The plants would like it, but so would the algae. Diffused through a curtain it should be fine.


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