Low Light High Tech or just right light?

[Anonymous]

Ive been following the forum for a while now and have learnt loads from everyone here, by your triumphs and disapointments,(and some dismaying failures of my own).
Before coming here I tried to skim as much info from the web as I could, now if I'm not sure about something I just come here. Great.
One thing Ive noticed though, is that everyone else is advocating huge amounts of light in high tech setups, and here I think it used to be similar (although no where near as bad). Now it seems everyone advocates lower lighting, lower lighting seems to be the "thing" right now, (a lot of other sites still showing examples of mega lit tanks.).
Is this really a new phase in planted tank philosophy? Is it Low light High Tech? Or just common sense. All my High light attempts failed. I Now get very good growth (better for some plants) with a low light setup. But it took a lot of experiment to get there. I'm using about 4 times less light than my highest lit experiment, Pearling's just as good.
I'd be interested to know if anyone else has been up the same high light path and settled back a bit, I know some of you have, and what your opinion is on this matter.
Are we in a different era where light levels are starting to come down, and if so it did start here at UKAPS?
bel

 

[mr. luke]

I have good success with low light low tech, and fair success with high light medium tech, although i get my fare share of algae with high lighting.
I dont think its a case of high light vs low light, as both have there advantages.
Low light in general has a higher margin for error (triggering algae)
High light gets superior rowth rates but its tricker to balance the light with nutrients and c02, the hazzard here is massive algae outbreaks.

 

[Brenmuk]

I have an old Interpet guide to growing plants and in the section on lighting they show a stem plant - I think cambomba sp - grown under different light levels. Under low light it was long and straggly and a bit sickly looking, under medium it was nice and compact and a healthy green colour and under very high light it was compact but also a grey green colour due to photo bleaching.

Nutrient and algae issues aside medium to high light (in terms of light reaching the plant) gives I think aesthetically pleasing and nicely compact looking plants.