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How to know if you got enough lights?

671 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  andyl9063, 
A
So I have my tank establish for a few months now. There's minimum green spot algae that is barely there.

The plants are starting to take off now. I got these plants in the tank:
dwarf hairgrass
TELANTHERA
Cryptocoryne x willisii "lucens"
Ludwigia repens
marisela minut

Some of the plants I want red is not getting red, but stay green. My tank is fair tall, 29" inches to be exact.
My lighting is 2 catalina T5HO 36" fixtures. 2 regular 6700k bulbs and 1 10000k bulb, so total of 6 bulbs.

How can you tell if you got too little or not enough lighting? I run co2 as well on aquasoil. I'm trying to see if I have enough lights for these plants to get red without measuring par. Any good indicators?
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L
The only way to really tell us to get a PAR meter but they are expensive (there are some DIY par meter instructions out there).

Some lights have been charted in the lighting section, you can check to see if yours are there.
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A
yeah I checked that and at about 30 in away from bottom, seems like 40 par according to catalina 3 bulbs so I have about medium light?
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Raymond S.
I don't care much for the 10,000K bulbs but in a 30" tank you might need those.
I would make a suggestion on this however. Get one each of the bulbs in the links below and replace two 6700K one/w these.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+13821+13825&pcatid=13825
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+13821+21444&pcatid=21444
These are much closer to the exact spectrum which plants use.
I can see the difference in leaf length when I change from 2 x 6700K bulbs to 1 x 6700K
and one 650nm. The next layer of leaves the plants put out after I add the 650nm bulbs is longer than the layer before that one when they had two 6700K bulbs.
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A
I think it's not enough lights. Even my foreground plants are getting brown spots. Any more thoughts?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk
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M
You can try increasing your photo period? (Longer lighting period)
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A
well i have them going from 5 to 12 am, so that's 7 hours. Increase it more???
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