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Opinions please!

855 views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  Hoppy 
#1 ·
I have done a little research on both LED and T5's and I would like to hear some input from you guys about what kind of lighting would be reccomended.
I have a 20 gallon long tank right now with all low lighting plants but I would like to be able to keep medium to medium high light plants. Right now I have several types of Crypts, Anubias, Vals and Java Fern. I would like to keep the Anubias, Vals and Java Fern but I could go either way with the Crypts.

The front of the tank has 10 inches from top of the tank and the back is 9 inches from the top of the tank. It's a pretty shallow tank so I am wondering if it is pointless to get something like 4xt5 bulb set up. I just set up the Co2 kit and it puts out roughly 2 bubbles in 3-4 seconds. I would like to grow riccia or glossostigma on the bottom or some other kind of carpet plant to fill the whole front of the tank. I don't have a ton of money to dump into lighting either so DIY is always an option. Any suggestions?
 
#2 ·
A 4xT5 setup on a 10" deep tank would grow nothing but algae with the plant list you provided. I think a 24" fuge ray is right for you - make sure to plant heavily as this fixture will put out a little bit too much light for the slow growers you have. Definitely plant dense. Here's some PAR data on the Finnex fixtures: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=189944
They're nice and affordable.
 
#3 ·
The one thing I noticed is there is no option to control each light manually. I'd like to be able to have some kind of moonlight setting so at night time it looks at pretty and during the day I can switch to sun-like settings. I will seriously consider this product though, it's very reasonably priced.
 
#6 ·
A Coralife or FishNeedIt 2 bulb T5HO light will give you plenty of light, around 60 micromols of PAR to grow any plant you could ever want to grow. But, you absolutely need to use presssurized CO2 when you use that much light. If you can't do that, you could use a Coralife T5NO light, and grow most plants, but you would want to also use DIY CO2. Even an ordinary T8 one bulb aquarium light fixture, like they include with many small tanks, would work fine also, giving you about the same amount of PAR as the T5NO light does. That tank is so low, almost any light works with it.
 
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