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My first planted tank

G

gouldy149

Seedling
Joined
4 Jun 2012
Messages
18
Hi all

Have been looking at light units to go over my new fisrt planted tank which will be 3ft x 18" x 20" and have choose a 4 tube dimable ati sunpower. Is this going to be to much light for only a 3 ft tank

All comments appreciated
Cheers
Rich
 
Hello,
If your lighting unit is dimmable then you have nothing to fear - as long as you dim the light. Of course, a PAR meter is worth it's weight in gold, but it dose cost a lot of gold to get one, which is a real shame. If you can find google reports of others who review the PAR values of your particular unit then you can get a clue. When the tank is first flooded a good lighting policy is to limit the PAR to about 40-60 micromoles at the substrate level for the first 6-8 weeks or so. Then the intensity can be increase gradually to increase growth rates if desired.

Cheers,
 
The ati units are really powerful but fantastic IMO. I use the 4 foot. Also the good thing about them is the way the reflectors are designed, the units can be raised much higher if your also worried about too much light, with out tons of light spread around the room due to how the reflectors get light directly into the tank.
I've read on a marine forum that the 3 foot didn't produce as much par as the larger models anyway and as Clive said, start off with them dimmed quite low and increase if necessary. Or just run two tubes initially


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Cheers for the advice just one other question what tubes would you recomend. Ie anything in the 6500k range or different
 
gouldy149 said:
Cheers for the advice just one other question what tubes would you recomend. Ie anything in the 6500k range or different
Click to expand...
Hi,
recommending tubes for other people is like recommending ice cream flavors. Unless it can be confirmed that you like exactly the same flavors as I do it is impossible for me to say "get Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia flavor" - which happens to be the best flavor in the world by the way.

The best thing is to have a look at the opening post in thread==> Cheap HO T5 fluorescent tubes - Update with photos because it has some cool photos showing the color hues of various bulbs. This gives you an idea of bulb flavors. Of course it's always a good idea to experiment with different bulbs to see which produces the color effect that appeals to your sense of aesthetics.

You should stay away from being enslaved by ideas about 6500K, which is a meaningless marketing device aimed at separating you from your money. Get any Kelvin flavor you like based on the link above. For more information about 6500K check this thread and it's associated links==>
Cheap ASDA Ikea etc light bulbs

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
.... Unless it can be confirmed that you like exactly the same flavors as I do it is impossible for me to say "get Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia flavor" - which happens to be the best flavor in the world by the way.
Click to expand...

See thats just rubbish ! Everyone knows that the best flavour in the world was Vanilla Chocolate Fudge by Haagen Dazs. And lamentably I can no longer get it.

:lol: :lol:
 
OK, found a supermarket that sells Be&Jerry's...but they have every flavor EXCEPT Cherry Garcia! :twisted: So decided to try Core White Chocolate Berry. Dude, are you kidding me? This has a gigantic dark fudge nucleus that is thicker than peanut butter. I couldn't even get it off the spoon. People should not have to fight with their ice cream. I think that rule was specifically written into the Magna Carta. You're claiming this to be world's best? Look, I'll give it the bronze medal and try to be happy about that OK? :rolleyes:

Cherry Garcia is the Usain Bolt of the ice cream world. No contest mate.

Cheers,
 
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