6ft tank lighting requirement

[Rummynose]

Hi!
A 6ft tank with 320watts of normal f/t light(Brand-Extra day hi -grow), is the lighting capacity enough? I'm helping a friend to re-scape his 6ft tank. So far i had experience on 2ft tank only & this is the 1st time i'm doing a 6ft. Pls kindly provide me with more infor.
Thanks.

[Heuer]

[quote:25cca75725="Rummynose"]Hi!
A 6ft tank with 320watts of normal f/t light(Brand-Extra day hi -grow), is the lighting capacity enough? I'm helping a friend to re-scape his 6ft tank. So far i had experience on 2ft tank only & this is the 1st time i'm doing a 6ft. Pls kindly provide me with more infor.
Thanks.[/quote:25cca75725]

going by the 3wpg rule, this is not enough. you need at least 500w. It also depends on what type of plants you are choosing. low light plants should still survive.

[mordrake]

the 3wpg "rule" does not necessarily apply to big tanks like 6ft.
more important would be the type of plants used, penetration required (ht of tank), type of lights used and placement of both lights and plants.

this has been discussed before in earlier threads.
fyi, there are hobbyists who uses 2x 150w mh lights for a 6ft tank.

[vinz]

The 3WPG guideline does not scale properly to large tanks and tiny tanks. Other experienced international hobbyists have noted that.

My own guideline for large tanks, up to 2 ft tall.
- 1x150W MH per 2 to 3 ft length
- 3 rows of PLs, end to end, entire length of tank.
- 4 rows of FLs, end to end, entire length of tank.

The PLs and FLs usually run to about 300+ W for a 6ft tank.

Personally I'm running 9x36W on a 6'x2'x2' tank.