[AquaView]

I Currently have a 55 gallon planted fresh water aquarium. The lights I'm running are coralife 4 bulbs at 65 watt each. All 4 bulbs are 6700k I have them on a timer for 9.5 hours. The lights are 18" above the substrate. How does this lighting set up sound???


Plants: HC 'cuba,' Water Wisteria, Ludwigia repens, Rotala macrandra, Dwarf water trumpet (Cryptocornyne wendtii), and a dwarf lily

 

[monk E]

well that's plenty of light, you have 260watts for 55 gallons. how close are the fixtures from the surface of the water? do you have any siesta during the day where the lights shut off for a couple hours? I would think that with that much light at 9hours a day you would see a lot of algae. A couple of the plants you have could survive just fine with much less light. Personally i have 108w for my 77 gallon and i have healthy wisteria and crypt wendtii. I don't know much about the others but i believe the HC requires a lot of light to thrive.

 

[2in10]

I had the same fixture on my 75 and had minimal algae issues.

 

[Hoppy]

As I posted in your thread in the General forum, Coralife PC lights don't have good reflectors, they have very poor ones. As a result you don't get nearly as much light as the wattage might lead you to believe. I think you may even have a bit too little light to grow HC in a 55 gallon tank. That's probably why 2in10 had minimal algae issues in his tank.

 

[AquaView]

hoppy.. How do i fix the problem with crappy reflectors. The reflectors that are in there currently are basically flat mirrors. This is not good????
The reflectors are approx. 4 inches from the surface of the water.

 

[Hoppy]

I don't know of any way to replace or fix those reflectors. That light is not bad for a less high tank, but it is certainly marginal for a 55 gallon tank. (One more reason why watts per gallon means nothing.)