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lighting suggestions

MacWhinny

Seedling
Joined
12 May 2018
Messages
1
Location
Plymouth
Hi

So i'm thinking about getting a 45cm x 45cm x 45cm tank so 91 liters.

I'm now looking for a light that would suite both med and high light requiring plants and what wattage i'd need for that depth.

Not looking for an exact answer but a general rule of thumb of what would be a great option to help the plants i put in it grow healthy and fast. .

if you could give some good suggestions for a LED lighting that goes across the tank that i could find here in the uk then that would be great.
 
Hi

Don't think in watts as it all depends on the lights efficiency in converting electric into photos and all lights differ. PAR outputs best way to measure the light output but manufactors rarely give that data.

A cheep good quality LED that's controllable out of the box and sells in the uk. Chihiros A plus series form Hinderfeld is a good option IMO
 
Not looking for an exact answer but a general rule of thumb of what would be a great option to help the plants i put in it grow healthy and fast. .
General rule of thumb is that the worst thing you can do when starting a planted tank is to focus on how much light you have.
Plants growing fast have nothing to do with plants being healthy and it is much more likely that if you have so much light that plants grow fast then algae will also grow very fast.

Have a read of this thread to get an idea of issues that are much more important than how much light one has.
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/the-green-reaper.49632/

Cheers,
 
Tropica went with Twinstar S series lighting for their Interzoo 2018 tanks (with one exception)

George Farmer's video

If possible, find a shop with display tanks & light options - aesthetics differ between the lights, even between various brands that all claim RGB
A 45cm cube should be fairly easy to find light options
I like the Kessil A160 as it's quite minimal (except for the rather ugly gooseneck - though it is convenient as light can be rotated during maintenance or for moonlight or shadowed viewing)
Definitely look for dimmable - most brands offer this as an accessory (or may include a very basic dimmer) - if you want this to be wifi or computer controlled, that's a more significant purchase

In some ways it's easier to scape a rectangle than a cube, so if you're not set on the 45cm cube, I'd suggest looking at the Aquascaper 600 or ADA60P dimension tanks (I suspect there are more 60cm light options)
 
TMC Grobeam 1500, is square, that would perfertly light a cube 45 X 45cm tank.

Michel.
 
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