I have grown Vals for years under a variety of conditions. High light, low light and everything in between. CO2, no CO2, excel, no excel. A colleague at work took some of my Vals and has it in a 29 with the stock lid and light, and the Val's, while not propagating quickly, are still sending out new runners periodically. My water is rock hard, which seems to be a preferred water condition for Vallisneria.

 

My Vals grow bigger and faster in my pool sand/hard water tank than in my Flourish/soft water tank. Which is relative I guess because they both grow large fast, but the hard water/pool sand ones spread more via runners.

 

Ok, so will Jungle Val (these r the ones I want) grow fine under almost any T8 bulb? I'm gonna go to Home Depot to get 6500k bulbs, shud these be ok?

 

Yes.:wink2:

 

i grow val "tiger" in low light conditions and they do fine ! IME when i grew vals in sand substrate , it was harder for me to produce runner. But when i switched up to ada soil it was easier. Maybe the substrate was less compact so the runners were easily grown?

 

when I planted some vals in new Eco,they sent out runners and grew,then stopped.I added O+ tabs and they immediately began sending runners and growing again.Mine are spiralis.I don't think my water is hard enough for them.

currently growing in a 24" tall tank with a finnex planted+.

 

Thank yo so much everyone for your advice and input! I will let u all know how it turns out!

 

the only one I have experience with is spiralis,it seems pretty tough.I understand most of it is pretty hard to kill.I have a couple of them in a spec V with the Stock spec LED and they are growing.It's not a very bright light.

 

Mine do fine, even with minimal light from an old low power spiral cfl. Even in inert gravel. I just feed plantamin once a month.

 

This is the cultivar that I have in my tanks and in some of my tanks it grows under low light in gravel with very little fertilizing.
Vallisneria americana 'Gigantea' - Tropica Aquarium Plants
If I leave it, it will go up to the top as in this photo. In a tank where I want to have some cover for fry, I leave it twisting around the surface of the tank. If I don't want that to happen, I trim it off so that it is just above the water line and doesn't shade other plants.
It gets very long and mine is about 3/4" wide.
It is an extremely undemanding plant.