Lighting on side of aquarium

I wouldn't get the bulb close to the tank. It will "create" algae(GSA) on the glass
right where the light is...but should help those smaller/newer plants.

Thank you Raymond, I'll start reading on algae from lights and learn the basics.

This would be on the back side of the tank which is 3" from wall, it wouldn't take long to build something with the LED's that will hang against the wall probably keeping the LED's 2" +/- from the back glass.

Since the LED strands I purchased are RGBW I can also fine tune the spectrum to help stop algae.

The reason I'm asking is I want to establish my plants before I add fish and all my plants are recently purchased which translates to small. My tank is 28" deep and my 'tall' background plants are currently 8" +/-

One thing to consider is plants will grow towards the light, not necessarily straight up. It'd probably cause stem plants to grow all bent and crooked.

I would definitely stear away from the Idea of putting lights on the sides of the tank. It is definitely possible and shouldn't kill anything. Aesthetically speaking it won't look good, cause algae growth, plants will not grow straight up. Plus putting the light in the back facing forwards, won't that blind you looking into the tank?

Are you having slow growth?

What kind of tank are you running, what size?
What kind of Lighting?
What fertilizers are you using?
What kind of Filtration/media are you using?

I tried this for two weeks and all my plants started facing the light and my fish started pointing their back towards the light. I immediately got rid of that. It looks like they have some kinda orientation towards light source.

Well that takes care of that brilliant idea :smile:

That's why I asked

Thanks everyone

MeCasa