260l with 80w t5, should I use co2 or not?

[Bob_C]

Hi, i hope this is the right section to post in, i am trying to sort a few things out in my mind and would appreciate any feedback. i am upgrading from my current 190l tall tank to an aquamanta eco 120 (
Glass Aquarium Eco 120 « Aquamanta) which is 260l with much more surface area.

it's got two 39w t5 bulbs in it, but no reflectors. i have been reading around and think i have medium to maybe high lighting here, but i am not sure, what with the lack of reflectors, what do you think?

I do have a pressurised co2 setup from a previous tank i can use, but not sure if i have enough light here to warrant it, but if i have more light than i think, not using co2 will lead to algae from what i have read.

 

[OllieNZ]

Seems weird it only has 3ft tubes on a 4ft tank. If you can, ditch the 2x39w for 1x54w then you will defo in the lowtech bracket. Or add plenty of floating plants and that should sufficently diffuse the light.

 

[Bob_C]

do you think i will get algae with both 39w tubes then? -floating plants sound good though, i wanted some of those anyway. I'm guessing i can't just plug a 54w tube into my current fixture.

 

[foxfish]

You can get in trouble if you have too much light to match the about of available C02 but if you have enough C02 distributed correctly then you could use much more light than you are suggesting!!!
A pretty standard lighting would be 2 x T5 the length of the tank for a C02 injected tank but... only if you are confident to supply the correct amount of C02.!
Lot of people use 4 or even 6 tubes but you would need to do lots of maintenance & ideally have years of experience to be able to deal with such bright light.
So if you are not to confident about dealing with a high tech tank or if you dont really understand how all the components work together, I would stick with you present lights but do lots of reading before setting anything up.
If you are not going to use C02 then a single T8 the length of the tank would be good.