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Even BMW wouldn't sell the car and then demand more cash for the tyres. :)

Yes, and if you change the connectors you'll have a very expensive light with no warranty.

That might explain why plants grew well under incandescent bulbs.

I wouldn't change then. :) If the Helialux is a real bargain, you could use it as an excuse to get another tank. :)

Have a word with (eg) CO2 Art to see if there's an adaptor available, it would soon pay for itself.

Boiling will drive the chlorine out. But not chloramine or heavy metals, so if your tapwater has other 'nasties' besides chlorine, especially anything that accumulates in the tank rather than dissipating, you might want to use a water conditioner, or use distilled or RO water. But if chlorine...

I think that includes you now. :) John and Oreo's links are very useful if you want to get into the technicalities. If you do decide to invest in new lights, I think the most useful improvement over incandescent and fluorescent light is that so many LED lights are dimmable, so trial and error is...

But not randomly. :)

I wish they wouldn't. We know lumens are not very useful. We know the the volume of the tank doesn't determine how much light it needs. Different shapes of tank with the same volume will not need the same lighting. The amount of light does not relate to how difficult to grow a plant is. If plant...

I agree with John, you need a complete fertiliser. I think the Aquadip is missing Nitrogen and Phosphorus too, but the makers don't seem to want to tell us. :) Assuming the algae you mentioned is green, I think it's unlikely you have too little light. I would certainly try other options before...

Does the label tell you what it contains? Their website isn't very forthcoming.

You know the manufacturers want us to believe that more lux is better. :)

But, at 2350 lm, only twice the light output. One reason why watts/gallon is not very useful. I would see how your plants get on with the supplied light before spending any money on extra lights. And look at cheaper options than the Eheim one if you do find you need to upgrade.

I wouldn't change things then. :)

They grew fine, but they were old-established aquarium species. The only carpets were Hairgrass and small Crypts. Any that grew above the water would look good between the bulbs, but get burnt where they were too close. :) Plants that used to grow well under incandescent bulbs include; Swords...

I skipped those and stuck with light bulbs. :) Only stopped using bulbs over some of my tanks when I couldn't get them any more. I did get some T8s in the 90s, still using those. Mostly using LEDs now. Plants don't seem to mind what equipment you use to provide the light, just want to get...

The tinfoil. :) I never even thought of the tubes overheating, I don't think that's going to happen. Lots of people do this, I've never heard of any overheating problems.

It's oven-proof. :)

I agree. :) Also agree with the advice given. A pH profile would also be useful, you check the pH every hour, starting before CO2 on-time, until lights-off time. The results give an idea of how much CO2 is actually in the water, and any undue fluctuation.

Also, many of our 'tropical aquarium plants' are not from equatorial regions. Especially some of the old-established favourites; we got Vallis from Italy, Cabomba and Sagittaria from USA and I'm sure there are lots more when I have time to check.

I was slow to adopt fluorescent tubes, still ran some of my tanks on incandescent bulbs until they were banned. I always seemed to get better plant growth with them, and no algae problems. Unfortunately, I don't know why that would be. :)

It would. If anything has evolved to need more specific light or other conditions it will be our delicate plants, some of which are found in a particular niche. Many kinds of algae manage to thrive just about anywhere, and 'algae' as a group includes something that can take advatage of just...

That sounds likely. Like a lot of the strange ways of 'cycling' a tank, which seem to have been 'borrowed' from marine use, even though the situation is quite different.

There are five styles in that listing, just click the pic of the freshwater bar style.

Planaria have a fantastic ability to regenerate, tiny pieces can each grow back into a complete animal. They mostly eat snails, so you might want to remove them if you want to keep fancy snails. A small piece of meat will attract them, leave it overnight and you can pull it out with the...

Probably Asellus aquaticus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asellus_aquaticus Quite harmless, and even useful, being a detritivore which will seek out organic debris and any uneaten food.

Yes, stick with what you have if it's not giving you any trouble. :) But if you do go for LEDs, get dimmable ones and you can set them to suit your tank and plants' needs.

Here's one...

iQuatics have a Juwel compatible range if that helps. eg: https://www.iquaticsonline.co.uk/bulbs/juwel-compatible-t5-fluorescents/54w-t5-1047mm-42/54w-juwel-t5-tropical.html

The volume in the sump is irrelevant, as you won't be lighting it. :)

Have you contacted the supplier? It might be a known problem that they can advise you on, or it could be a faulty tube which they should replace.

Arcadia make LED tubes for freshwater you'd have to check the length you need, local aquarium shop, or Amazon, probably about £50 each, but will cost a bit less to run than fluorescent, so it balances out. Reflectors you should be able to get from any aquarium shop, on-line or bricks-and-mortar...

How are your plants doing? They won't have read anything about watts per litre, but they will tell you if they're not happy. You pics are of the tank and lights, but I can see some of the plants and they look healthy. If they are actually showing signs of insufficient light, you could think...

Don't forget you'll have to pay duty and VAT when you bring it home.

Is the new adaptor's output 24v 5a, as per the old one?

Hi Ash, I think you need a certain number of posts (maybe 25, I'm not sure) before you can access the 'For Sale' section, including Joe's link. Stick around, the posts soon add up. :)

If we had PAR meters, we could buy lights, find out they're not suitable, buy more and try again. If the light manufacturers would simply give the PAR figures instead of the meaningless information and weasel words, we could just buy an appropriate light first time.

I think you're right, Marcel. I imagine they just multiply up to get the most impressive sounding specs to sell more lights to people who are not "fanatic plant nerds". There are more of them than there are of us. :) Yes, the way the individual LEDs are wired, driven, controlled etc makes a...

If you go for the DIY option, https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/led-diy.49569/ is a good thread to read through. 'Mow Said' seems to know what he's doing, and explains things well.

Wen one aspect of the design is so obviously poorly engineered, it makes me wonder about the overall product. It often puts me off buying an expensive item, as I wonder what other corners have been cut were they can't be so easily seen.

But the Chinese can sell us lots of cheap stuff, the shipping to Europe can't cost a whole lot more from Japan than from China.

That's what we did in the past, without modern controllers, a dim light coming on before the main light and going off after.

That's the spirit! :)