too much light?

evercl92 said:

...Save yourself the money, go to home depot or lowes, and get 'sunshine' or 'daylight' bulbs...

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Interesting that is what someone told me when I set up my 10 gallon high tech tank....just use the 6500 K daylight compact fluorescents and save your money. So, I thought hell I am new and know nothing so best to follow the advise. I got two GE 15 watt 6500 K daylight fluorescents dirt cheap from Wal-Mart. Put them in the canopy bulb sockets for a total of 30 watts(3 watts per gallon, 30 ppm c02, fluorite substrate, and EI fert dosing - off I was to the races). Plant growth was pathetic to say the least, algae issues were severe. I never suspected the lights. So just out of curiosity, just cause everything else failed to fix the problem, I replaced the bulbs with the far more expensive 20 watt corallife colormax for a total of 40 watts. Boom, plants did 100% better. I don't work for coralife, but this is what I saw, so I am not 100% convinced that the cheaper compact fluorescents, daylight or otherwise, will give you the same results as a speciality compact fluorescent like corallife.

Just to make sure this was not an isolated incident, I just set up another 10 gallon test tank with the cheap GE wal-mart compact fluorescents, 30 ppm c02 and Aquasoil Amazonia II substrate. Let's see what happens this time around. If the plants do pathetic again, I have another spare canopy with the 2 20 watt corallife colarmax fluorescents on standby ready to replace and test.

I have had 10000K bulbs and 6700K bulbs. Now I have both. 10,000k is a little too white IMO and 6700K is a little too yellow. Now that I have both, it looks perfect.

If you boost the lights to a signifigant level over your tank, you will need to boost CO2 injection. Along with that, you will also need to boost your fertilization with both macros and micros. The more light you add, the more your plants need CO2 and nutrition.

Not knowing what your tank looks like or the dimentions, it is kind of hard to reccommend a fixture. If you had a canopy, you could use AHSupply.com fixtures. I plan on a 75 with a row of 2 55W 10,000K a row of 2 Actnic bulbs, and a row of 2 6700K bulbs. I want the Actics just for fish viewing and a dawn/dusk effect. The tank will have pressurized CO2 via an inline DYI reactor and regular dosing of nitrates, phosphates, and potassium (every other day with micros inbetween).

Edit: Be cautious about buying the cheapest fixture. I have seen some out there that have a white reflector which isn't nearly as effective as a mirror like reflector. I personally think that the reflector is a big key, and maybe even more so than the wattage of the light. There is currently a thread where a guy that is using both a coralife fixture and ahsupply lights thinks that the growth is better on the ahsupply setup. I think that it probably has more to do with the reflectors than anything.