[Cino20]

ii was thinking of using the home depot t8s with the diamond plate light, i want to have low to medium light plants(high if possible) in my 125 gal 6ft tank. from reaserch on "Hoppys" thread i understand that one two bulb diamond plate light would be great if siting directly on the tank. Now, the thing is that my light would be hanging about a foot above the tank because ill be having a wooden extention on top of the tank so my turtles dont jump out. also i only need the lighting to cover about 4-5 feet of the length of the tank because the other foot and a half to two feet will be topped with their driftwood basking area lit up with their basking lights. i mention this because i understand the farther out from the center of the light the less "PAR" it contains, ill be planting for the most part that 4-5 feet that the water isint shaded by the turtle basking area. will the lighting from this fixture penetrate through that total of 35 inches(23water 12 air?) for that 4-5 feet? will i need 2 of them so that most of the area is directly under light for deeper penetration or ???


p.s i would like an answer to my question, i dont need flames for wanting a planted turtle tank :hihi:

Thanks guys

 

[MiniFishRoom]

I'm sure it will work with medium to low light plants.
High light plants probably will not do well if at all.

Also what types of plants are you using because I've never found a plant that is turtle proof

 

[driftwoodhunter]

Hi, and welcome to TPT!

I was just commenting on this in another thread - I have that same HD diamond plate light over a 125g tank, it used to be on my 55 until I tore it down. It's working out very, very well for me. My tanks are low tech - low light, no added Co2, etc. I have been resting the light directly on top of the glass versa tops on the tanks, but I actually have been getting small amounts of algae. A bit on the upper most driftwood, on an anubia nana that is within inches of the surface (my bad, but it's stuck on there tight!) and on bolbitis that's inches from the surface. So I propped the light about 6" - 7" above the glass temporarily to see what would happen. The algae is fading, and the tank actually looks much better with the light more diffused, and the light spreads more towards the sides as well. I should add that all my plants have low light needs so raising the light a few inches won't negatively effect them, I don't know what you have.

Here is a pic of the 125g tank before I raised the light off the glass - there isn't a harsh top glare now. Maybe this will help you imagine how the light will do for your 125...if you want I can try to take a pic at night, after work, to show the difference.

The old set up; the pic's out of focus but you get the idea - lol

 

[Cino20]

how sure? lol , with my turts its trial and error, try a plant ...they WILL take a bite, if they dont like the taste ill buy more of it and hope they dont tear it to pieces for fun.

 

[Cino20]

@ driftwood hunter, read many of your posts on hoppys thread thanks for the reply and the welcome. ive seen that pic posted before, your tank looks great!. And yes i would love if you could take a picture with the light raised because as stated the light will be a foot above water, are you using any special substrate,fertz or root tabs? idk if i should put any special subsstrate aside from the pond rocks ill be using...its an upgrade from a 65 gal tank so right now its bare bottom with nothing but turtles and a plecco in it, cant wait to get it started !! thanks for the help and sorry so many questions, im just a noob that has done a little reaserch..

 

[sowNreap]

I'm sure you probably saw this thread: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=185893&highlight= where I did some Lux measurements on that light up to 30" height from "substrate". Taken in the air. Hoppy says you can add about 10% to the numbers to account for the focusing effect of air to water interface.

To make it easier so you can just scan the measurements if you don't want to read all the posts. Unless the Lux number has "x1" next to it, add a Zero to the end of the lux number, divide by 76 then add 10% to get estimated PAR. If it says the number is x1 just divide that number .. don't add a zero to the end. Used different scales on the Lux meter is reason for this. For example at: 30" height center of bulb & fixture lux was 215, so use 2150 divided by 76 = 28.3 + 10% = 31.1 PAR. You can at least get an idea of the light at 30" .. not sure how or if you could guesstimate it for 35".

And remember these were taken with nothing between the light and sensor and are as accurate as I could get so they could be off some.

You can take the 30" readings from the various posts to get an average. It might also give you an idea of the PAR toward the end of the light, I did a few measurements either at the end or close to it.

Sorry I didn't do 35" height. Didn't know the fixture would do good enough to be that high and still grow anything. But it does pretty good for the cost.