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Lighting suggestions for an ADA Mini M?

Emyr

Emyr

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Joined
20 Jul 2011
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343
Location
London
I am currently looking at lighting options for my new ADA Mini M nano. Have been looking at various options such as the dennerle 11W or the Superfish Aqua Qube Light Kit 18W.

I am keeping the tank low tech to start with, with mosses and anubias but at some point will want to inject co2 and create a proper scape. It is in the back of my mind that the ADA solar mini M is so nice but ridiculously expensive at £300 and would 27W be too much light for a low tech mosses etc?

Any feedback or options would be really helpful, thanks. :)
 
Hi,
I'd probably stick with the 11W jobbie for low tech. It's possible to grow mosses and ferns with just ambient light from the window, so anything more just adds more work and troubles. You can add CO2 later if you want, without penalty. Of course you can always get the high intensity unit and block the light until you add CO2.

Cheers,
 
Thanks Ceg, I may go with an 11W for now and consider the mini solar at some point. The tank wont really be near the window, I like to have it inside the room with a light as a feature to the room. How would I go about blocking light from the high intensity unit? That sounds like a good possible option and would mean I didnt then have to buy both.

I agree 300 is a lot of money but it is very smart and neat and the best one for that size tank. A lot of consideration will have to go into it.
 
Have you considered the white PAR30 LED bulbs with an ikea desk lamp as a holder, can vary the height then, think the bulbs are about £40 and look pretty cool :) However 11w on a mini m should suffice for most plants anyway. just tossing ideas about....
 
Yeah, that's a good idea as well with the LED bulbs. I totally understand the emotional appeal of the sexy lighting. I really do. I'm the worst offender. If you really want to go for the Ferrari you might want to use a grey acrylic cover over the tank which acts as a neutral density filter on a camera lens. This way it preserves the color characteristics of the bulb but just lowers the intensity reaching the leaves. You could buy a large sheet and cut multiple squares to stack them depending on how much light you wanted to block. This would probably be the cleanest visual solution, otherwise, the standard methods such as floating plants, frogbit and other types can cover the surface to block light reaching the lower regions of the tank. This is another case where having a PAR meter helps a lot.

I wasn't really suggesting that you put the tank near the window, I just mentioned that as a frame of reference to illustrate how little light mosses and ferns really need... They are practically indestructible in low light, but as soon as you pummel them with high light they become very destructible...

Cheers,
 
That is a good point Iain. I currently grow some emersed plants under a desk lamp with an 18W daylight bulb inside it and they grow perfectly. I havent seen any of these par 30 leds. Where can you get them, could you give me a link Iain?

I could smarty fix one of those onto the unit that the tank will sit and then be able to adjust the height according to how much light it needs. However as you say Ceg it is then a lot easier with a par meter to know exactly how much light is getting into the tank from any given height. Means that I wouldnt need to buy an 11W light though.

I could see how it looks then maybe invest in the ADA mini solar at some point. Thats very helpful about blocking the light though. So you use the acrylic cover over the top of the tank as a sort of lid that lowers the lighting intensity? Rather than attaching the acrylic to the light itself?

There are so many options.
 
WooHoo, Clive agreed with me!! (another aquatic milestone!)

Pretty much anywhere for a standard Par30 LED bulb, just google it, can get cheaper ones (£10) or buy ones designed and built for aquariums(£40) These are mainly used by the reefing community...
You can get a mix of colours or pure white etc but im sure others can advise on that better than myself. Failing that, if you have a bulb you like the look of already check the colour rendition on that and try to match it up.

You can buy flexible lamp holders that clamp to the side of the tank too but as with most specific aquatic equipment you need some vaseline :)

Example...
http://www.aquatic-components.co.uk/boo ... -411-p.asp
 
In the past I had a 30x20x20 cm with 11W (PL light) and CO2 and I was able to grow most plants, including a beautiful carpet of cuba. This amount of lights allows you to go either way (high or low tech).

Nevertheless, growth was a bit slow (even with CO2) so I upgraded to a mini PL Blau 18 watt. I am now 100% satisfied with growth speed (not too high nor too low). It has an arm so you have some wiggle room to adjust height, hence intensity.

GM
 
Mini M light is sexy and cool (especially the black one), but honestly it's a huge power on that small tank. Especially with mosses. This would be an endless fight with algae even with powerful filtration and CO2 injection.

However 11W is the other end.

Mosses looks the best with more light, CO2 and colder soft water. If you start to remove things from this list the mosses will appear differently. Will be darken, less bushy etc. Still even with 11W or lower you can grow lot's of mosses.

We do grow nearly all kinds of Tropica mosses under TMC Led units over our racks. No CO2 injection, but softer water. Mosses is fine with the TMC Aquaray 500 over a 60L tank, but looks and grows differently than in our high light CO2 tanks.

As a personal expirement:

Willow Moss works great with low light. Grows slower but moss looks great.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream
Riccardia G. looks dark and the leaf is not nice very thin
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream
Spiky Moss grows bushy and the leaf is looking good too.
Chrismass Moss grows less bushy i really do not like the look of it under low light
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream
Flame grows ok, but very thin. So you will not have that forest effect.
Barbieri grows ok.
Weeping is like Christmass Moss. Not grows bushy under low light.

This is under the low light no CO2 tank with weekly ferts, weekly water changes. 120 ppm TDS and 22 celsius water temp.
 
Forgot to link some high light examples too:

Riccardia G with solar mini m
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream
other mosses were in the early phase so they are not in top condition and i had a fight with algae at that time ;)

Weeping moss wonder with ATI light:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream

Christmass Moss with ATI light. Only a few bits were in the original form. We trimmed the rest
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... hotostream

Fissidens under high light:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... otostream/
The green glow is not algae, but i could not capture it better. Somehow the colors were washed out.
another high light example now with 2 TMC 1000ND over a 60L tank:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/keymaker/6 ... otostream/

Christmass Moss in its wild form under the ATI ones. Still not in this top condition because of the trimmings but you get the idea:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viktorlant ... otostream/

There are several brilliant examples here on nano moss tanks too. I am not pushing you to high light, but plants looks different for sure with adding a bit more. Oh and LEDs works nice for a small tank like this. ;)
 
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