Stick with T8s or go with T6?

[Polly]

HI I'm re-doing my Juwel Rio 125 soon and would love to grow some carpeting plants at the front, but hoping to keep low tech - is this possible?

I have the T8 bar in the hood and am tryng to decide between T8 fluorescents from lampspecs and T6 from AquaEssentials - huge difference in price but does it really make that much difference?

Have been reading the forum tring to learn as much as possible and I think my head is going to explode soon

 

[swackett]

Hi Polly,

I would say IMHO that you will need a comination of things to grow plants well, these combinations/elements are water flow, nutrients, c02 and light.

In my experience if you only increase light you are more likely to end up with algae issues - It's all about balance.

What is your current setup? Filter? Do you add c02 in any form? Will you be adding nutrients to the water?

Cheers

 

[Polly]

Juwel Rio 125 with Juwel filter - don't know if I'm just lucky with the pump but the all the plants in there at the moment are moving "in the breeze" so flow can't be too bad, but the filter is kept free of gunk. It's at least as good as the flow from the Fluval 205 that I retired.

Don't want to go down the full CO2 route - I don't have anywhere to hide the equipment with this tank and a Co2 cylinder is'nt the kind of thing I want on show in my living room - which is why I bought the Juwel not sure about the carbon liquid - I'd like to understand more about how Glutaraldehyde breaks down to release the carbon and any effects it may have in the long term.

I will have to dose NPK and other ferts as my tap water has no measurable/useful levels - mountain moorland reservoir - I have discus water coming out of my tap

Do T6 bulbs give more useful light for plants? or are they just brighter to my eyes? in which case I could just go with the lampspec T8s and put the money saved towards other parts of the setup.

 

[swackett]

Sounds like you are happy with the flow from your filter and that you will dosing ferts. Many people use Excel/easycarbo in there their tanks, I've used Excel in mine and am not aware of any adverse effects of using it.

Try this link for more info on T6's http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=6018

You could always replace the existing light bar with the Juwel High-lite bar, thus enabling you to use T5 tubes?
http://www.global-aquatics.com/p/875614/juwel-aquarium-replacement-t5-high-lite-bar-80cm.html