Old man needs lighting advice

[french47]

I am just returning to fish and plant keeping, Can anyone please tell me what I need for a tank 60 x 24 x 24 inch ( 150 x 60 x 60cm) If I go for 4.5 w per inch of tank I get 270w if I use 3w per gallon I get 327 w. then when I look at tube lengths in T5 a 46 inch 1150 tube gives 54 w times 4 but is that not too short for a 60 inch tank.
I am getting very confused, when I packed up fish keeping I was using light bulbs.
Please will you tell me what I need to go and buy for a 60 inch tank so that I can grow nice plants in slightly soft water.
When I say everything I mean controllers, tubes, cables the lot, I have looked at LED but that's even more confusing.
Have a laugh at the old man I don't mind, just please give me a hand. ( As they say in modern speak " It's doing my head in ")
Cheers

 

[Antipofish]

Hey French47, no one will laugh at you here mate. We have all had to go along the same steep learning curve that is modern aquarium lighting.

To best advise you it kind of depends what you want to achieve and how you intend setting your aquarium up, as well as which plants you want to grow. Some (like echinodorus, anubias, microsorum, and many stem plants) don't need intense light. Other plants do, like most of the carpeting plants in general, and some of the more delicate plants you will find.

Depending on the above, will depend on what lighting you need to go for. Some would undoubtedly advise you that with a 2 foot deep tank, Metal Halide lighting would be a great benefit. You can raise or lower it depending on how great the light intensity you need, and there are some cracking "used" deals to be had on Ebay (I believe I saw a Giesemann Infiniti unit on there which was quoted as being big enough for a 5 footer) for about £250.

Remember, you have a cracking size tank there, but you dont necessarily have to have full floodlit illumination in every corner. You could have more intense lighting centred or to one side, with lower lighting to the sides.... there are loads of possibilities.

LED is a good way to go also. I am not sure exactly on how deep LED's are now considered to be useful to. You would certainly be wanting something like the TMC 1000ND range (I have one of these and its fantastic). But for a 5 foot tank you would be looking at a LOT of money. You would need at least three units, which would set you back about £165 each ... thats the cheapest I just found) plus either three controllers at £60 or a multicontroller at £200+. The multicontrollers do come up for about £120 second had quite a lot though.... Each tile uses two "channels" of the 8 channel controller, so it can run up to four tiles (or eight aquabeam bars which are not as nice IMHO but others love them... I prefer things more compact, lol). Either way for TMC tile set up you would be looking at just under £700. You could always approach the retailers concerned and see if they will do a discount based on that spend I guess.

Another alternative would be a unit like the AI Sol or the Ecotech Radion. They will set you back about £500 (one comes with its own controller the other you buy separately but the light itself is a bit cheaper). You would need TWO of these for sure, so thats a grand...

The cheaper option would be to go for a T5 tube luminaire. A decent one for your tank would be about half to two thirds the cost of TMC tiles and controller.

I hope that helps. If you have any questions I would be happy to try and help a bit more.


PS. Remember... the more light you throw at a plant, the more CO2 it needs (thus probably meaning you need a full on CO2 setup) and the more fertiliser it needs (read the article on EI dosing. It can be found here... http://www.ukaps.org/EI.htm
Its actually VERY easy and VERY cheap and again, I can tell you what you need to buy and what quantities to mix )

 

[ceg4048]

I am just returning to fish and plant keeping, Can anyone please tell me what I need for a tank 60 x 24 x 24 inch ( 150 x 60 x 60cm)

Hello,
No one can tell you what you need unless you provide more basic information such as whether or not you intend to use CO2 enrichment, and whether or not price is an issue. There are some basic rules of thumb such as the main one that says high intensity lighting requires CO2 enrichment. You also did not mention whether your tank has a hood or not.

So you need to decide whether you will want to operate a CO2 enriched tank with it's attendant high maintenance , or whether you wish to have a more sedate, low maintenance non-enriched tank.
If using CO2 then FAR more important than light is your flow throughput and distribution of CO2.

If using CO2 then you need absolutely no more than 4 X 54W T5 tubes. You can get something like the Arcadia Freshwater OT5 Luminaire 2 x 80W - 62" which is simply mounted on top of the tank and you just have to plug it in. I believe this unit also has the option of being suspended from the ceiling. This assumes you do not have a hood for the tank.

If NOT using CO2 then you need no more than 4 X 54W T8 tubes but you might be able to get away with using the same unit listed above.

You'll need to clarify more specifically what your goals and objectives are regarding CO2 as well as whether you intend to have a hood for the tank.


Cheers,

 

[french47]

Thanks chaps,

You are most helpful, my fault again. The tank I have ordered is to keep a dozen Pterophyllum Scalare or Altums.
with lots of bog wood, Echinodorus species, Cryptocryne and Microsorium. The tank comes with a hood and it will have two external filters rated at 1500l / hr, I am thinking of CO2 if you think it is necessary , as for LED I did take a large intake of breath when I saw the cost, I have a very understanding wife, but I don't think she would be too amused if I went down the LED route, so I guess it's T5's.
I hope this time I have given the right information so as to receive more advice.
Cheers

 

[ceg4048]

Hello,
Well, CO2 is really not "necessary" for the plants that you have mentioned. CO2 will increase their growth rates by 300%-1000%. Some of the more exotic species don't do well at all without CO2 but Crypts, Swords and Ferns are all fine without CO2 - as long as you keep the lighting intensity under control.

If the tank has a hood does it not also come with lights? I guess I'm confused on this part. If using the hood then of course the luminaire I mentioned is not feasible.

If the hood does not come with lights then is it that you will mount lighting units inside the hood? Do you want the ballasts to be in the hood or will you run the wiring to externally mounted ballasts? Here is an example of a very elegant internally mounted lighting unit that you can mount to the hood==> http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/d-d-t5-razor-light

There are cheap DIY LED solutions so it depends on how good of a DIYer you are.

Cheers,

 

[foxfish]

So your main incentive would be to keep angle fish, if that is the case then bright lighting is probably not the way to go!
I would be tempted to dedicate the tank to an amazon biotope in the hope of making your fish feel at home!
You may not need to use injected C02 for such a scape especially if you pay attention to the substrate & have lots of patients!
I am a C02 fan because I like to see fast lush growth but I have seen pictures on this forum of a beautiful Angle tank with no plants at all, just very nicely decorated with beautiful pieces of wood.
Antipofish had a good point about only brightly illuminating a section of the tank, you could get some great effects by using GU10 LED lighting which is pretty cheap & a combination of warm white, day light & blue across the length would look really cool!
A couple of the above light in a spotlight form would send shrouds of rippling light to the bottom

 

[Antipofish]

Hi again. Definitely if you are choosing those plants and having that kind of setup then you dont really need strong light (in fact it would detract from what you are trying to achieve), and you would not need CO2 most likely.

HOWEVER, lol. (there is always a but !!!) consider this;

"Will you want this to be an Altum setup FOREVER ?"

It may pay (budget allowing) to build in a degree of versatility in your lighting. It would be all very well just getting a cheap light unit that matches your needs now, but will it do what you want in two years time when you might change your mind or decide you want to go "high tech" and keep different fish or plant species ?

There can be no doubt that the TMC LED's (with a guarantee of 5 years) are very versatile when used with a controller. Not only can you ramp the illumination up and down over a user defined period of time (although some standard light units such as the ATI sunpower allows this too) but you can preset maximum and minimum lighting levels. Thus, at present you could limit the light output to match your lower light requirement and if you change your scaping ideas and want brighter, you can just change the levels accordingly.

The other side of this coin is to just stick with something cheaper that matches your current needs, because one thing is for sure; prices will probably drop, and newer LED lights will come onto the market.

Its a bit of a minefield, but you have a good start knowing what you want the tank to be at least