tank and lighting

[ongtw]

hi guys,

can you advice and see if i have enough lights for planting HC?

tanks is 16*16*16 in inches and i plan to roughly put 2-3 inches of gravel. i've got a 22 watts PL light and i plan to use the attached light as well. problem is i don't know how much wattage is this light.

the bulb says 15 watts of energy but will emit 75 watts equivalent when lighted up. is this light even usable?

*** Edit by Vinz:

Ongtw,

Next time use the bbcode from your gallery instead of the HTML code to link photos. It looks like:

[img]http://www.aquaticquotient.com/gallery/files/1/1/8/7/5/DSCN2484.JPG[/img]

And it will show the image correctly.


<img src="[url]http://www.aquaticquotient.com/gallery/files/1/1/8/7/5/DSCN2484.JPG[/url]" alt="DSCN2484" /> <- this is the wrong link to use.

***

pls advice

[doubleace]

Hi Bro

This light bulb is an energy saving bulb. It wattage is 15W and is the same as a bulb giving out 75W of lights.

[ongtw]

so with this and an existing 22 watts of pl lights. u think my lighting is enough ?

[doubleace]

your tank is a 1ft cube tank?

[ongtw]

hi doubleace,

its slightly bigger than 1ft cube. 16 inches all sides when filled with water. and gravel estimated to take up about 3 inches thick.

[ongtw]

can anyone advice on the above?

[vinz]

The guideline is approximately 3 watts per gallon of PL light.

Use our calculator (topmost menu bar, right side) to figure it out. Use the actual W of your PL light. That is use 15W, not 75W.

[ongtw]

thanks vinz,

that means this can be used then.

thanks

[doubleace]

sorry just read your post but since you have solve the problem..

[ongtw]

hi doubleace,

whats your say? go ahead and tell me. i'm very new so i'm open to any suggestions.

[doubleace]

oh.. what i mean is you measure your tank size then you use the lighting calculator to calculate the wattage needed for your tank size.

[torque6]

Some correction guys, 3wpg doesnt work for nano tanks.

Use the following link to determine.

http://www.fitchfamily.com/lighting.html

[ongtw]

torque,

i just read it. i calculated from the website and it said 83 watts for my 17 gallon tank!!!

how am i going to do that??!!

[vinz]

That guideline is for high light tanks.

Frankly, with such a small tank, light demanding, fast growing plants will overgrow your tank so fast you'll get sick of maintaining the tank. Set the tank up for low or moderate light plants.

Anubias, java ferns, cryptocorynes, and many other plants. Surf/search/browse AQ.

[ongtw]

thanks vinz,

my concern is actually for jap hairgrass and HC cos i wanted to try both of these. in your opinion, can a 22 watts pl light suffice? If not then will it help if i add the light that i've attached in the picture in my first post?

[doubleace]

just use the energy saving light first... If too hight then you reduce to 22W.

[torque6]

Ya, it really depends on what type of plants you intend to get. 22w should suffice for a 1FT, i would follow closely to ada cubes gardens since they are using a standard solaris 27w for all their cube tanks.