Welcome to the Beginner Q/A Section!

[arcab4]

Hello! Welcome to the freshwater Q/A section. I hope you guys will fill this section up with important questions and useful information! Thanks again for visiting!

- johnny (arcab4)

[Neon]

I'll start it off

In a 6 Foot tank thats 13 inches wide how many flurecent tubes would i need to grow plants with CO2
and what Wattig would i need?

I have only seen 30 and 18 Watt lights in australia

[dattack]

A 6 foot tank is pretty tough to light cheaply, especially in Australia. Try to find 4 foot T8 which might be made by Phillips.  You have to search around for a bulb at least 5000K to grow some plants.  These are 1" in diameter bulbs (t8) and I am sure you can fit quite a few in there.  You are going to have to stagger the setup so you can fit the 6 foot tank.

[clothahump]

Go to an electrical store and ask if they can get 5 foot T5's, they need electronic chokes but the light output is quite incredible.
Check out Philips web site for dealers in your area.

[Neon]

Hmm i went looking on the Philips site but i couldn't find any lights that work with Aquariums

Hows about this tho

http://www.aquaria.com.au/cgi-bin/db/show?db=aquariacat&Section=Freshwater&Cate gory=Lighting&ProductName=Fluroescent+Tube+Aqu astar+30watt

There 30 Watt lights
10000k
3Foot in length
Twice the power output that dattack recomended!

I was thinking that placing 6 under the hood would be sufficent?

(Out of everything with maintaining an aquarium lighting is the only thing that gets me)

[Neon]

:-/

[dattack]

I think you got the lighting terminology wrong three neon.

A 10000K bulb means the color rendition of the bulb. *I mention 5000K which just means the color spectrum is more towards the yellow/red spectrum which helps in plant growth. *10000K bulbs are more bluer/whiter and reserve for mostly reef environments.

You have to look at the wattage instead.

Do they sell shoplights in Australia? *Do they sell bulbs at a hardware store in australia. *The sight you give has very specialize bulbs which can be very expensive.

I think they do sell 5 foot bulbs in Australia.  Call up your electrical supply store and ask.

[Neon]

Hmmmm
I aint supprised i'm wrong
I'll call up a few places looking for the lighting you mentioned.

When you say Shop light i don't realy understand what you mean. cause here most shops (Cept for specialty stores) use fluresent lighting!

Can you tell me exactly what shop lights are? and do they fit under aquarium hoods?

[clothahump]

Try this http://www.aeema.asn.au/groupings/di...m?divisionID=4
I serarched with google for fluorescent lighting au.

[RedTurquoise]

Your close Dattack! The 'K' value for fluorescents refers to the 'color temperature'. I know this sounds funny but when you understand what 'color temperature' means, it makes sense. 'Color Temperature' refers to the temperature to which one would have to heat a "black body" source to produce light of similar spectral characteristics. So it other words the object would 'grow' at certain color at that specific heat. Kinda of interesting I think. The standard unit for color temperature is Kelvin.

About growing plants, I think that everyone would agree that the 'color temperature' or K value of the light source should match or be very close to a sunny day around noon. Am I correct?

Well, the K factor of sunlight around noon is 5500K. Of course, that in itself is not the most important. Instead, like dattack mentioned, that the output is more of concern. Wattage is the energy consumption of the light ie. 40W (Volts x Amps) however lumens is the 'output' of the light source ie. 4500 lumens. Illumination (level of light persent on a surface expressed as lux) would be prefered but that depends on the distance of the light source. Lumens is defined as the quantity of light emitted by a lamp.

Lumen values for lamps:
100W Incandescent - 1750
40W Fluorescent - Cool White - 3150
100W Metal Halide - 8500

Just a quick description and I hope that it helps. *miley*