FISH HOUSE LIGHTING

[dean]

Hi all i have seen the light and want to grow plants in all my tanks along one side of my fishhouse, previously ive had it as a fish only centralised system and the room receive natural daylight from a small south facing window in the end gable and 3x65 watt tubes down the centre aisle, obviously this isnt enough lighting so heres the question

1] install lights over every tank [18]
or
2] install metal halides or similar down the aisle

 

[LondonDragon]

If I were you I would do it above every tank, not that it will matter if you are only keeping fish, but it would look much better and you would be able to enjoy the tanks much better also.

 

[dean]

I want to grow plants in them all

 

[JenCliBee]

I want to grow plants in them all

I guess it would all depend on what sort of plants you want to grow?.... anubias/ferns and mosses along with quite a few stem plants will grow under very little light so having relatively dim light would probably be sufficient.

The other aspect is intensity of light, obviously the higher you go the more need for ferts and co2 being there. Is this really what you want to do on 18 tanks?.... i would imagine adding liquid co2 will work out very expensive as will pressurised setups for that amount of tanks.

I would decide on what you want to grow first and then you really have a better idea of what types and amounts of light you will need.

 

[dean]

I don't want to limit myself to low light species
If need be I can build an inline Co2 reactor and all the tanks will receive it via the return pump
I was thinking that if I had metal halide etc then high light plants in the top tank and low light in the bottom ones
Would this work?
Which lights would be suitable?