gabber
Seedling
- Joined
- 23 May 2012
- Messages
- 11
Hi all , not new to fish keeping and had several tanks over the years , mainly cichlid based . However i am a bit uncertain about plants and lighting in the aquarium . With having mainly cichlid tanks they havent been heavily planted to say the least , amazon swords and java fern where about my limit , until now that is .
Decided to strip down my old rio 180 , resealed it . Base layer of tetra plant substrate followed by limpopo black sand . A jbl u401 co2 was added to the set up aswell .Now its come to adding some plants , so i joined ukaps for advice .Which leads to my question :
If i put a mirror along the back of the tank (outside) would this increase the light levels in the tank .
Im thinking its a similar principal to reflectors , of which i have two . My lights are the old T8 type , two 30W lamps (1 day and 1 colour) . Which i dont think will be enough for the heavily planted tank i am hoping to achieve . I can buy a 3mm perspex acrlic mirror cut to size on ebay for £17.10 wich is alot cheaper than a new T5 lighting unit . Im hoping this may be a cheaper alternative .
I know the mirror wont be to some fishes liking and i will take this into account when stocking . ive had a few oscars that would def not enjoy the experience of a mirror !
I cant seem to find out much info on the internet regarding mirrors in aquariums .Hope i can find a few answers here. Many thanks for reading .
Gabber
ps will be running the tank with the juwel internal filter along with an eheim 2026 external and a hydor koralia nano 900 for a good circulation rate and co2 at 30 ppm . Cheers .
Decided to strip down my old rio 180 , resealed it . Base layer of tetra plant substrate followed by limpopo black sand . A jbl u401 co2 was added to the set up aswell .Now its come to adding some plants , so i joined ukaps for advice .Which leads to my question :
If i put a mirror along the back of the tank (outside) would this increase the light levels in the tank .
Im thinking its a similar principal to reflectors , of which i have two . My lights are the old T8 type , two 30W lamps (1 day and 1 colour) . Which i dont think will be enough for the heavily planted tank i am hoping to achieve . I can buy a 3mm perspex acrlic mirror cut to size on ebay for £17.10 wich is alot cheaper than a new T5 lighting unit . Im hoping this may be a cheaper alternative .
I know the mirror wont be to some fishes liking and i will take this into account when stocking . ive had a few oscars that would def not enjoy the experience of a mirror !
I cant seem to find out much info on the internet regarding mirrors in aquariums .Hope i can find a few answers here. Many thanks for reading .
Gabber
ps will be running the tank with the juwel internal filter along with an eheim 2026 external and a hydor koralia nano 900 for a good circulation rate and co2 at 30 ppm . Cheers .