Turning my Plants Red?

[Emyr]

Mike, Why do you dislike the use of high lighting? All of Amanos tanks use high lighting and most of the pro's as well. why only medium lighting?

 

[clonitza]

There are two reasons why I prefer medium over high lighting:

- high light stresses fish if there's not enough shade provided. For me fish health is far more important than the look of plants.
- the growth is too fast to handle even with daily trimming, high light has its use for fast contest aquascaping or for tanks with limited numbers of plants. I use more than 20 species / tank when I do an aquascape and like the things to evolve a little bit slower so I can plan the trimming sessions for weekends.

So what's medium light from my point of view:

- T5 0.5w / l
- T8 1w / l
- without reflectors
- shallow tanks, 30-35cm deep (not counting the gravel).

Not sure Amano is using high light, Tom in fact as far as I remember put their HQI lamps to a test and it proved to be medium lighting. (I must be wrong of course, so I'm waiting for his input).

Mike

 

[J Butler]

...My light and ADA's is about 0.4 w/liter of tank and these tanks are 60cm deep and the lights are another 35 cm above the water minimum...

Tom was kind enough to include the value in this very discussion 😉

(at the top of his 3rd post on the 2nd page)