# Lighting/Plant ID Questions



## cgskipper (Nov 15, 2010)

I'm in the process of setting up my first planted aquarium. My overall experience has been with fresh and salt fish-only setups. I have a 55 gal with 2 Bio-Wheel 350's. I'm not sure what types of plants I have...I bought them from the LFS but being new, the names didn't mean a thing to me. My questions:

1. Can anyone help with plant ID on the pic below?



2. I currently have a two 24" striplights, one on each side. Each light has a T8 18" Life-Glo bulb.

I am looking at upgrading my lights to help the plants a bit. I do not want to venture into CO2 at this time. I'm considering All-Glass 48" double or triple striplights with normal T8 bulbs. I would consider PC's but I haven't found any that fit on normal glass canopies or that would fit under my hood.

Thanks!


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## automatic-hydromatic (Oct 18, 2010)

hard to tell, but it looks like it's the common Amazon Sword

Amazon Sword - Echinodorus amazonicus













very easy plants to grow; I've got two in my 10 gallon tank that's lit with 30 watt's via two CFLs 

if you just put them in, don't be alarmed if the leaves get a few brown spots; they will a lot of the times when being put into a new ecosystem. they'll recover quickly



any closer pics? the tank looks great!


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## cgskipper (Nov 15, 2010)

Alright, did a little more research and am leaning toward a triple striplight from All-Glass. I'm then looking at mixing the bulbs with two Life-Glo's and one Flora-Glo. That should give me 120w total and with the 55 gal tank, a 2.18 wpg setup. Would that be a good balance between good light for the plants without overdoing it? Like I said before, I would like to avoid a CO2 setup for now.


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

If they would fit in your hood take a look at home depot shop lights. a 2 tube 32w/tube t8 fixture is like $10 and 6500k tubes are $6. that's 64w/fixture 128w total. 

A couple of those only costs $30 or so and gives more then enough light for any planted tank.


my .02


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## cgskipper (Nov 15, 2010)

If I go with the triple striplight (120 watts, 2.18 wpg), will that give me an algae problem if I don't use CO2?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Algae can be kept under control by regulating the amount of time your light is on - for the most part.


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## cgskipper (Nov 15, 2010)

If I want the light on for 10-12 hours per day, should I go with the double (80 watt) or triple (120 watt) setup?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Will depend on what your tank is doing....no set formula for X time = X algae. Best thing to do is test once you get the lights. Leave on for how long you like and adjust from there. Start taking away hours you're not home or in bed.


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## cgskipper (Nov 15, 2010)

I agree with the last post that there are no exact formulas for each aquarium. Based on everyone's comments and the research I did today, I decided to try the 48" triple striplight with 2 Life-Glo 40 watts and 1 Flora-Glo 40 watt. I'll keep you all posted, especially once the water clears and I start adding fish - hopefully this weekend!

Thanks for everyone's help!


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