Ripper Hollow

Among other things, a planted aquarium needs good lighting to promote plant growth.

I have a dual strip light fixture on my 26 gallon aquarium, giving me 130 watts, which is about 7.5 watts per gallon. The fixture I have is a Satellite Compact Fluorescent Fixture Dual 24″ Dual Daylight 6,700°K/10,000°K and Dual Actinic 420nm/460nm.

This fixture has four electrical plugs. One for each dual bulb, one for the LED moonlight, and one for the cooling fan. I have my lights on a timer that also turns on the cooling fan (which is built in to the fixture). The lights are on for 8 hours a day. When the lights turn off, the LED moonlight turns on.

I need to replace both bulbs soon, but I’m wondering if I should replace the dual actinic with a second dual daylight. If I go with a second dual daylight, I can see if there’s any growth difference.  There’s a lot of talk on the forums I visit about the usefulness of actinic bulbs on a freshwater planted tank.  I’d say it’s about a 50/50 whether or not they are useful.  I think I’ll do my own tests.

My lights turn on one hour after my CO2 turns on, and turn off one hour after my CO2 turns off.

I use a total of three timer power strips for all of my equipment. I’m planning on building a “power center,” which will be made out of plywood with electric outlets built on. I’m going to have a couple outlets for non timer equipment, such as my cannister filter, power head (which I don’t have yet), and heater. I’ll also have and outlets for the timer strips. I’ll consolidate both light strips, cooling fan, and moon light onto one power strip. This will allow better use of the cabinet space under the aquarium.

That’s about it for my lighting setup. What kind of lighting do you use on your aquarium?

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I’m currently in the planning stage of my 20 gallon aquarium.  I already have the tank (it’s a tank that I’ve had for a while now), the lighting, the filter, heater, and some of the hard scape materials.  I still need to get the organic soil, sand, plants, and of course, shrimp and fish.

Equipment I Already Have:

1. Single GLO Life-Glo T5 HO 24W 6700K
2. 20 Gallon Tall Aquarium
3. Eheim ECCO 2232
4. Catalina Titanium Heater 100W
5. Two Red/Brown Sand Banks

Stuff I Still Need:

1. Organic Topsoil (un-fertilized)
2. CaribSea Tahitian Moon Substrate

Planned Fauna:

1. Neon Tetra x10
2. Red Cherry Shrimp x5
3. Amano Shrimp x5
4. Otocinclus x5
5. Zebra Nerite Snail x5

Planned Flora:

1. E. tenellus, Marselia minuta, or dwarf sag
2. Hygros, Bacopa, Rotala indica, Ludwigia repens, Hydrocoytle leucocephala for stem plants
3. Mosses, ferns, anubias, and crypts

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I have a strange nutrient deficiency (or something) going on with one of my plants. the leaves are curling and turning black. The black parts are fairly rough to the touch. I’m also still having trouble with string hair algae. I change 50% water weekly, and dose dry fertilizers, 1/16 tsp Trace & Fe 3x week and 1/16 tsp KH2PO4, K2SO4, 1/2 tsp KNO3 3x week. I think I’ll try increasing my CO2 injection. I need to find my drop checker. I have no idea where it is, and I really don’t want to order a new one.

Any ideas/suggestions?

Update: Seems that this is normal for this type of anubias.  I might also have a low phosphate level.  I’ve decided to up my KH2PO4 from 1/16 tsp to 1/8 tsp.  I’ll see if that helps.  I need to get a phosphate level test kit.

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It’s been a few days since I re-scaped my 26 gallon aquarium. You can find more photos here, and my aquarium journal here.

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I finally re-scaped my 26 gallon aquarium. I took out all my plants, and put in my driftwood that I boiled and soaked the other night, and replanted all my old and new plants. I started fearing that I was running out of space. Indeed, I started to run out of space for my smaller foreground plants. But that’s ok, I got them in. I’ll have to re-scape in the near future anyway, once I’m ready to take out all the substrate and replace it with soil and sand. By that time, I’ll have my 20 gallon aquarium set up and can use that to house my fish and snails while I redo the substrate.

Here’s a couple photos I took right after. There’s still a lot of crap in the water column. I’ll take more photos once it all settles and/or gets filtered out.

Popularity: 23% [?]