# Lighting for live plants



## boomer (Mar 8, 2007)

I was wondering what bulbs to use for my plants?. 
I have a 70 gallon tank with two 48 inch flouresant fixtures. Currently I'm using the bulbs that came with the fixtures. They are Eclipse Natural Daylight F40T10.. 
Are these lights good enough for plants ? if not what would be good replacements for them? 
As for what kind of plants i have... thats a good question..I can't remember the names of them except for one...combamba


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## BV77 (Jan 22, 2005)

I use GE Daylight or GE Sunshine bulbs from Lowe's , Home Depot, or Wally's. The daylight bulbs are 6500k, and the sunshine bulbs are 5000k, which is the recommended color temp for plants. You can get more expensive ones if you wish, but these give the most bang for the buck, IMO.


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## girth vader (Apr 24, 2006)

BV77 said:


> I use GE Daylight or GE Sunshine bulbs from Lowe's , Home Depot, or Wally's. The daylight bulbs are 6500k, and the sunshine bulbs are 5000k, which is the recommended color temp for plants. You can get more expensive ones if you wish, but these give the most bang for the buck, IMO.


yeppers. the 67ks are my favorite for plants, I use the PC version but the same kelvin over mine and they love it. anywhere from 5k-10k works.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

48" tubes are 36W each, giving you 72W in total. This is a very low light tank, for a planted tank. (Just over 1 watt per gallon. I usually shoot for about 2 watts per gallon, and this is very modest lighting for a planted tank, high-tech enthusiasts go as high as 4 wpg). You could grow some really low light plants, like Java fern & Java moss, but not much else. I don't think you have much hope of growing Cabomba, as it's a plant that needs a fair bit of light. Looks lovely, though. I tried some in my 1.5 wpg tank and it just fell apart. Now that I've got a better setup, maybe I should try it again...


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

48 inch tubes are 40 watts.


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## MyraVan (Jan 19, 2005)

Oh, that's interesting... Of the brands we have over here, Hagen 48" tubes are 40w as Damon says, but Interpet and Arcadia 48" tubes are 36w, so they say. I wonder if they really consume different amounts of energy in real life, or if they consume the same amount but are just labelled differently?

Anyway, even if your tubes are 40W each, 80W for a 70g tank is not very much.


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## Guest (Mar 13, 2007)

> Anyway, even if your tubes are 40W each, 80W for a 70g tank is not very much


I agree.  For decent plant choices, you'd want atleast double that.


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## boomer (Mar 8, 2007)

thanks for the tips guys... Today I changed one of the Eclipse bulbs for an Aqua-Glo bulb 40W 18000K.... says it promotes plant growth


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

You can change to any spectrum you want. Without more light you will still have trouble growing the easiest of plants.


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## boomer (Mar 8, 2007)

I added 1 more 48inch flouresant light for a total of 3 lights...120w total.. thats the best i can do for now 
What kind of new lighting system should I look at for optimum plant growth? :fish:


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## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

1 more 48 inch tube would work, or something like this.

http://www.bigalsonline.com/BigAlsU...asscompactfluorescentstriplight48110wattblack
with one of your current 48 inch strips.


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## girth vader (Apr 24, 2006)

18k kelvin is a Reef Light. Refer to my first post.


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