Luke1939
Seedling
- Joined
- 4 Mar 2015
- Messages
- 18
Hi All
So am starting a new planted tank... New to this aspect of the hobby but have had fish in and out of my life since I was a little one !
I have a 400l (48x24x24) tank which is currently fishless cycling (due to disaster having to restart see introduction thread for full story)
So tank with current set up is as per below. All plants are I planted into terracotta sauces (tetra plant substrate) which has garden weed material over the top then sand over the top of this. Plants are growing Ok since photo taken the crinum seems to be doing very well. Mixed in some plastic plants . This tank is now to be fully stripped out and started from scratch.
I just picked up a wonderful piece of wood that is disc like in nature and reminded me of the new gen Enterprise (I’m rather geek like…)
Gracefully curved on the top and lots of nooks, crannies and mini caves underneath. Also have 2 bags of ADA Malaya substrate,.Current plan is to mount the wood on acrylic column to give the illusion its floating - will post a pic later!
Other useful info Hydor Pro 600 canister, DIY LED lighting. I’m using 100% R/O remineralised with Tropic Marin powder ( my tap water is very hard, 50+PPM Nitrates and pH of around 8.4. classic London Water!) I have my own R/O unit .
Ok first thing I want to discuss I guess is the lighting . I built an LED system using strips of modules glued to wooden spars that rest on mounts on the tank these are linked to a controller that allows for 50 different programs. It was very cheap to set up! I can move move the wood back and forth to adjust where the light falls.
The white LEDs modules are 1.8 W 12,000 to 15000 kelvin . Which seemed like a good idea at the time…. Each strip has 10 modules for 18W – 72W total . I have 4 of these. The other strip is made up of Blue and Red and UV modules at 1.44W . On reading up it looks like I have set up a reef lighting system ….
So I guess first question can I use this lighting system for a planted tank it’s a tricky one to work out ?!I I have a spare t5 90w unit from an old tank which i could use to supplement the lighting with
So am starting a new planted tank... New to this aspect of the hobby but have had fish in and out of my life since I was a little one !
I have a 400l (48x24x24) tank which is currently fishless cycling (due to disaster having to restart see introduction thread for full story)
So tank with current set up is as per below. All plants are I planted into terracotta sauces (tetra plant substrate) which has garden weed material over the top then sand over the top of this. Plants are growing Ok since photo taken the crinum seems to be doing very well. Mixed in some plastic plants . This tank is now to be fully stripped out and started from scratch.
I just picked up a wonderful piece of wood that is disc like in nature and reminded me of the new gen Enterprise (I’m rather geek like…)
Gracefully curved on the top and lots of nooks, crannies and mini caves underneath. Also have 2 bags of ADA Malaya substrate,.Current plan is to mount the wood on acrylic column to give the illusion its floating - will post a pic later!
Other useful info Hydor Pro 600 canister, DIY LED lighting. I’m using 100% R/O remineralised with Tropic Marin powder ( my tap water is very hard, 50+PPM Nitrates and pH of around 8.4. classic London Water!) I have my own R/O unit .
Ok first thing I want to discuss I guess is the lighting . I built an LED system using strips of modules glued to wooden spars that rest on mounts on the tank these are linked to a controller that allows for 50 different programs. It was very cheap to set up! I can move move the wood back and forth to adjust where the light falls.
The white LEDs modules are 1.8 W 12,000 to 15000 kelvin . Which seemed like a good idea at the time…. Each strip has 10 modules for 18W – 72W total . I have 4 of these. The other strip is made up of Blue and Red and UV modules at 1.44W . On reading up it looks like I have set up a reef lighting system ….
So I guess first question can I use this lighting system for a planted tank it’s a tricky one to work out ?!I I have a spare t5 90w unit from an old tank which i could use to supplement the lighting with