Complete Newbie Question

[Sparrowhawk]

I've been planning to completely start over with my three nano tanks, upgrade size, and attempt the Walstad method (if that's the way to put it). Finally having acquired enough funds I headed off to my LFS to get stuff going.

The plan is to have three 30cm/12inch cubes running all side by side in a row, and to have the same light over all of them, which would mean I'd only need a 90cm/36inch light. This is all well and good, but I'm unsure as to whether or not I've goofed by going with what was suggested at the LFS: a single tube 39W T5 fixture. It had been a very long day, and in a total lapse of judgement I completely forgot to ask for specs, so I know I don't have a lot of information to work with here. My apologies.

I was just wondering if the experts here could shed any light as to whether it's appropriate for my purposes from the extremely limited information I'm able to provide. I'm looking to grow a whole bunch of fast-growing stems, hopefully a carpet of DHG, a couple of varieties of moss perhaps, and to salvage the anubias and floaters I've already got in my current setups.

I realise it wasn't very intelligent of me to just say, "Hey, yeah, take my money and I'm just gonna hope for the best!" without investigating everything properly, so no need to point out that particular stupidity. ;-)

Many thanks to anyone who can make sense out of what my muddled brain has spewed forth to this forum.
:-)

[Hoppy]

If you are going to have only plants in the tanks, no fish or shrimp, and you are going to use CO2 at a pretty high level, that light will work fine. But, it might need to be suspended above the top of the tanks if you find you need more CO2 to avoid algae than you can use, if you have fish/shrimps.