lights for 10 gallon

[tjnelson44]

Hello everybody. I was planning on setting up a 10 gallon planted tank but was having trouble finding a good light. I am looking for a 20 inch compact fluorescent light to fit the tank but so far the only options I have found have been a diy system from Aquarium Hobbyist Supply and one from Coralife. I don't want to put a light together and the coralife light didn't have as many watts as I want since I was planning on growing some plants with high light requirements. I was hoping that somebody would have some suggestions about some good lighting for a 10 gallon tank.
thanks,
Trevor

 

[newworldan06]

You could always just buy a dual strip light then buy two coral life nutri grow to put in there. that would work perfect

 

[aspen]

i have never really 'planted' a 10, but i bought 2 incandescent hoods that use 2 screw-in cf lamps. you can get a lot of selection in these lamps if you look around. on one site i saw a guy who put a 65 watt screw-in cf lamp over his nano reef 10 gal in a little custom wood hood, but i'm not sure where he got the lamp. do a search for these lamps and see what is available in a 5000-6500 k lamp in the 13 to 26 watt size. that's lots of light for a 10 with 2 of those suckers in there. watch for the lamp life though some of them aren't that great, or the lumens are a little less to get them to light in the cold.

replacement lamps are cheap this way too.

rick

 

[tjnelson44]

Thanks for the tips. I just opened up the new Dr. Fosters and Smith catolog and they have exactly what I was looking for. It seems they just added 20 inch cf fixtures with either a single 36 watt 6500K bulb or two 36 watt 6500K bulbs.
Trevor

 

[Everett]

I was wondering if you ever got your light and what your impression of it was? I ordered the same thing i have a 20" cube tank, I am using 2*40w cf and 2xNO 18w bulbs and just barely keeping my glosso down. Knew i shoulda gone with the 24" cube lights are so much easier to find.

 

[tjnelson44]

Hi Everett,
I went with the single 36 watt instead of the double. I figured 3.6 watts/gallon would be plenty. I was wrong. My glosso is growing good, the only problem is that its about 3 inches tall. My Rotala indica seems to need more light too since it looses its color unless its at the top of the tank right under the light. All together though its a good looking tank. I do like the light fixture but it does not fit well on my 10. It seems a little short in length so the legs do not fit properly on the top of the tank. By the way, were did you find a 20 inch cube tank? I would love to get one but have not seen them for sale.
Trevor

 

[Everett]

Firstly i dont know how you are having so much trouble with the glosso, 3.6wpg is plenty, especially in only a 10. The wpg rule really breaks down on that small of a tank. How are you doing your CO2, and do you know your KH/PH? You have to have a good amount of CO2 to keep the auxins flowing in the plant keeping it down.

My 80w are directly over top of the glosso. If you plant in clumps your glosso will grow up initally, i did basically that to start and two days ago pulled all of it up and cut each node apart. With tweasers and a lot of time i planted each node burying it to the point where the leaves lay on the substrate. I have ph = 6.5, KH = 2 deg, CO2 ~25ppm. It should stay down but time will tell, i'll know in about 2 weeks.

Now, I bought it from glasscages.com. I would suggest against purchasing their acrylic. I have also seen that there is a 20x20x17 cube made by All glass. Here is a list of my problems with the work

The overflow was not sealed, square, and the bend showed air bubbles from being heated too much.

Glue was found on the side panels

The aquarium has a top, not ordered, with black trim going around it

There is one scratch in the side panel i probably made but i can't say for certain.

This tank is 24" deep and so is a pita to work with the plants in the back. I am glad that i decided to build cut my own holes. Cages, cut the overflow. It was done well with a very nice bulk head. Without the additional holes i have no idea how anyone would manage to get their filter equiptment into the thing, so i cut two more and am still amazed it worked. Although, I am still trying to figure out how to get this top off; I didn't realize how much i hated it till it was filled with water. Taking a razor around acrylic just sends shivers up my spine.

It's all my fault for taking it, I took a look at it and knew i wasn't going to find anything similar for a while. If you do order from them be very very specific with what you want and why you want it. If you know how to do something, like i would have installed my own overflow and had a colored back, do it yourself just get the 5 or 6 sides down.

If you've had acrylic you may also know what a headache moving things around can be worse than Operation(R). Another option if you dunno about it is Starfire glass. They make really attractive aquariums, it's made from the glass they use for store windows and doesn't contain as many impurities so the color stays truer. I have seen websites that make those too, but without knowing where you are I can't help too much weight for shipping would be terrible.

 

[tjnelson44]

Everett,
My parameters are pretty close to yours. My KH is 3, pH 6.6, and the chart I looked at put my CO2 at 22 ppm. I did plant my glosso in clumps so maybe that has something to do with the upward growth. Let me know how cutting at the nodes then replanting works. I figure I will wait and see how it works for you before I try since it seems like a lot of work :wink:

Trevor

 

[LyreTail]

I have use two 14 watt mini spiral compact fluorescent lights called "Sunlight" ( higher than "daylight") that are 5000 kelvin in an incandescent hood - work pretty good for low light plants and is easy to setup - I did find it necessary to create a small air gap uder light fixture to let heat escape

 

[Everett]

I would go out on a limb and tell you this will work for you if you see the clumps of glosso, 5+ stems, grow up and arch out horizontally. Some of my original clumps arched back down to the substrate. Anyway, I've gotten 2-3 nodes out on my replants. Originally I planted a 10"x20" area with 1 portion of glosso. From a weeks growth i was able to harvest enough nodes to plant 1 leaf pair/sq. inch. Doing this will build your carpet a lot faster, as long as your ferts are there your carpet will build in about 2 weeks i imagine.

Glosso is just a pita, eventually it will grow on top of itself and the lower layers will die. If you pull it up, you pull up the entire mat. I am going to try and cut stripes out of mine to keep it thinner. The idea there is to plug it like they do the grass on golf greens. I've never seen a good method for maintaining a full carpet for an extended period of time, and wont know if mine works for some time.

I think your R. indica maybe just suffering a little from a lack of traces, or possibly even NO3. How heavily are you dosing your fertilizers? What type of substrate are you using, how deep, and how old is it?

 

[tjnelson44]

Everett,
I have been dosing with seachem ferts. I use .5 ml of nitrogen, .5 ml of phosphorus, 1 ml of potassium, and 1 ml of flourish. I add this every 3-5 days. I have no idea what level this raises my nutreints to. I know the macronutrients should be present in ceratin ratios, I just don't know what they are. I have 2 inches of flourite. It is about 5-6 weeks old. Thanks in advance for the advice.
Trevor

 

[Everett]

People use a vague ratio of 10:1 Nitrogenhosphate this is a calculated attempt to limit algae. There is some science to it, basically phosphate is the limiting reagent. In the absence of the limiting reagent the reaction stops. It's from marine data but it works well overall.

10N + 1P -X-> 1 algae
16N + 1P ---> 1 algae

I would do something like this, if your tank is 60% planted:
3ml flourish 2x per week
Traces 2x per week
root tab under the rotala
9 hour photo period

Check your nitrate with a home test just keep it at about 5-10ppm. Some of the ferts may accumulate so water changes will be needed to keep things in check. Too much iron, for example, can lead to a horrible outbreak of hair algae, that doomed my 16 w/ 5wpg. You'll probably get a decent amount of spot algae with this method if you just switch overnite. Over the next two months I would ease into this, start with 1ml of flourish 2x, and the suggested trace dosage per week. I think the rotala will respond to some extra flourish and a root tab, but there is no way to tell for about the next month.

If your plants aren't melting, and your algae is in check you are doing well.

 

[tjnelson44]

Thanks for the tips. It looks like I may chop up my glosso this weekend and replant. I think It will do well since many of the stems are putting out lots of roots at the nodes.
Trevor