delphinus

I thought about doing that (4x65) or even 2x96W but the replacement cost of PC lamps is driving me crazy. One nice thing about the T5's - $20 per lamp is hard to beat for high-end brand name bulbs. Although I guess it's a moot point if you're replacing 4 (or 6) @ $20ea versus 2 @ $40. -05- Hmmm, darn it. Well .. maybe I'll see what I can sell to help push me towards the 6 lamp unit. I guess it doesn't have to happen today ...

Paul, how much heat came off the 6 lamp unit of yours? I hear the Tek's don't have fans so I'm a bit concerned about heat buildup. I have a hillstream loach and I'm concerned that with summer here the tank is gonna perch precariously on the warm side for his liking as it is. I really don't know about taking away the canopy at this point, I need this tank to be quiet so every little thing that helps muffle the noise has to stay on there. I was really convinced that a 4-lamp unit was going to be enough of a step up from what I currently have as it is .. now I'm not so sure! The only problem is .. I could go out and buy a 4-lamp unit today, but probably would have to hold off on a 6-lamp unit for quite a while, it's just too far past the "comfort threshold" in price. $400 for the unit plus another $80 in the lamps .. I dunno, that's a LOT of coin. If you decide you'd like to sell yours instead of hang onto it, let me know ..

Unfortunately it doesn't look so good for the 6 light unit. The cheapest I can find the 4 lamp unit is $270 Cdn and the cheapest I can find the 6-light is $400ish, which mentally at least feels like almost double. Plus the 6 light unit looks like it would take up nearly the entire tank footprint, leaving me about 3" of clearance to get my hands into the tank. Basically it means I'm still leaning towards the 4-lamp unit. Surely this will be a significant improvement over the current 2x65W I currently have, regardless, do you think? Or should I really think long and hard about getting the 6 light (even at the large upstep in cost)?

For looks mostly, plus it helps muffle the water noise (this is a tank with overflow and sump). The tank with a canopy fits in better with the surroundings since this is a high traffic area. I take it you're using T5's? Which fixture are you using?

Tank is a standard 65. 36x18x24 (approx). Yeah, I realize the actinics are not useful for the plants but I thought I'd try it for two reasons: 1) The 6500K lights, at least the PC's, always look a little too yellow for my taste after about 2 weeks. Not having tried the T5's yet I don't know if the effect is the same but I'd like a slightly "whiter" look to the light, especially since the mopani is making the water brownish. I thought an actinic might help make the fish colours pop a little too (not sure). If I were to stay with PC's I was going to go with 10k's instead of 6.5k's for new lamps because of this effect. A little bit of inefficiency for growing plants, so long as it's not a fatal inefficiency (so to speak) would be a small tradeoff for having a tank that doesn't look "pee yellow" (maybe I'm still stuck on the "reef look" .. not sure). 2) I'd like a dusk/dawn effect because of my loaches, being nocturnal, don't ever come out during full daylight intensity. If one bank of lights was dimmer/bluer then I thought that might entice them to come out of hiding a little more often. And 3) Because "actinics" are "kewwwwwwwwl" LOL .. just kidding. I like your suggestion of the 6 light and only using 4 if needed but I'm a little concerned about the size of the unit, the heat-loss options (since I have a canopy and don't want to ventilate with fans -- too much noise).. and.. well, of course, the initial purchase cost. I'll check into it though, you're right, better to do it once instead of twice and with the dollar the way it is right now, it might be a good time to consider stepping it up a bit. Ok, yeah I think you just convinced me. (Now to convince the other half that it's a "good idea, really" )

Thinking of picking up a Tek T5 lighting unit (36" - 4x39W) for my 65G planted tank. Currently using a 2x65W PC unit (30"). Question 1) Is this adequate? If I'm gonna spend the cash I might as well get it right the first time. There's also a 6 light unit but I think that's overkill for the plants I've got.. Question 2) What sort of lights should I look at? I'm thinking maybe 2 midday suns (6000K), one aquablue (about a 11000K I think) and an actinic (just for the heck of it). Good plan? Bad plan?

I have a bunch of CO2 equipment kicking around, unused leftovers/spares from a previous attempt at dosing CO2 plus having too many reef tanks and calcium reactors. Have a 10lb cylinder, dual guage regulator, needle valve bubble counter solenoid etc. Plus a spiral CO2 reactor. So it seems to me I could kick this into gear anytime. It's like a $300 investment to replace it all but here it is waiting to be used (thank heavens for being a pack rat).. Anyhow, the only real thing stopping me is a lack of understanding. I need more research before jumping into it. Well, that and more light. I'm thinking of going to 4x39W T5HO, that should be a pretty good step up from 2x65W PC? Problem with this is I don't think the wpg rule applies because T5 HO's, with good reflectors, are supposed to be the shizzle, and you see reef tanks being run with T5's that rival halide lit tanks. So the lumens coming out are pound for pound more much per watt than others. But I guess my real question is, will 4x39W be a good step up or should I look at 6x39W? In fact I'll probably start a new thread for this question.

Not likely. I think anything that eats them will surely be damaging to a reef. I'm not really all that convinced that my CC stars and cowry are all that effective anyhow. Scraping the rock *should* work but you really kind of have to get a few millimetres off the rock itself since they burrow in. Another idea to try is get some 2 part underwater epoxy (you can get it at any fish store), and cover the hydroids with it. You can pry the epoxy off at a later date or just let the coraline grow over it (and then it will just look like part of the rock). Another

Cool, thanks for the reply. I actually do want to eventually get into a fertilizer routine and CO2 and brighter lights but I have to ease myself into it, for both wallet reasons and in terms of how much info I can learn and retain in one go. It is good to know that 0.13 is basically nil in terms of FW (I was reading plantedtank.net yesterday and noticed people were talking about MUCH higher levels). This is unusual for me because coming from reefs, 0.13 is practically lethal levels. So it's quite a shift for me. My main concern now, or question rather, is this though. Would you not want nitrate and levels to be "balanced" out? Ie. I was reading something about a Redfield ratio. (Unfortunately the technical details are well over my head at this point.) I was just wondering if you want to nitrate and phosphate to be somewhat equal to each other, in order for the plants to make best use of them and not have algae take over. My 65g tank is still new so somewhat clean, but my main worry is that it will, in time, become like my 30g planted tank (which I can't wait to take offline because it's so horrible). I clean out the slime algae for hours on end, and within a week it looks like I've done nothing. I actually would run phosphate sponge in an effort to keep it at bay but it rarely worked for longer than a few weeks. So much for "plants will outcompete the algae." I even tried CO2 on that tank but it only made things worse so I gave up on it. It was so bad I wanted to just setup a tank with like 1 fluorescent and plastic plants and just use algae killer additives as needed. I decided instead to give it one more faithful try at planted tanks and I'm determined to not let what happened to my 30g, happen with this new tank. So I have some learnin' to do I guess. I do have some filamentous algae growing in among a microsword, and it doesn't seem to be receding. Similarly, the plants are not growing quite as much as I would have liked. I'm pushing 2wpg using PC lights, so I imagine this is probably on the low to moderate side instead of high. I'm not sure. My hope is to upgrade to 4xT5 at some point (since the replacement cost of T5's easily trumps the replacement cost of PC's, I'm thinking I'd like to go in that direction eventually). But I realize that there probably needs to be taken into account a carbon source, as well as balanced N-P-whatever's, before getting there. Sooo ... any advice for a planted tank neophyte?? :smokey:

I have a bit of a phosphate problem in my reef tanks so I've actually invested in a phosphate meter because I'm obsessed with tracking my #'s and I have a hard time with colour-coded test kits .. The Merc test kit which has a very good reputation as a high-sensitivity low-range test kit costs $80, so when I found a an electronic meter that is accurate to 0.01 in the 0.0-2.0 range for not-too-much-more, I jumped on it. So anyhow, for fun, I tested my tapwater (I live in south Calgary so my water comes out of Glenmore), and it read 0.05ppm PO4. A little higher than I would have hoped, but I guess I'm not really all that surprised (espescially with it being spring and runoff and all that). However, what disturbs me is that I tested my FW planted tank, and it read 0.13ppm PO4. I was expecting it to be nominal if not outright zero because I thought the plants would be consuming phosphate. Am I incorrect in thinking this should happen? Is phosphate not as bad a problem in FW as it is in reefs (it's a nasty problem in reef tanks because it inhibits calcification - in short, it kills corals, so in reefs you basically want that number at as close as possible to zero, if not outright zero. This is why many people run phosban, rowaphos, etc.).

Hmm, yeah OK I see it now. The bluelines are more horizontally arranged as opposed to vertically. Very nice fish! Thanks I have a S. virgatus and I've been on the lookout for a S. doliatus this last year (it seems that whenever I decide on a fish to try next, that one becomes suddenly very rarely seen for some reason.. Murphy's Law.)

Thanks for the comments everyone This has been a bit of a learning exercise for me as I go along, but I'm having fun with it. I can't wait to see the plants start to grow and fill in. I need to learn about CO2 and fertilization next I suppose, but I guess one step at a time for now. It started off as just a larger home for my 2 clown loaches who were living in a 30g. As I got into the planning of it I thought I really wanted to go for live plants, so I'm giving it a try. I just hope that the loaches don't prove to be incompatible to a planted tank, because then I'll be faced with making a new home for them and I really want to keep this as a planted tank because I'm liking it too much! Currently, the fish list is a Farlowella cat, 3 SAE's, 5 Ameca splendens (3 adults, 2 babies), an otocat, 2 clown loaches, and a hillstream loach. I have one fish left in the 30g tank that this 65g tank is replacing and that is a female BNP. She is a little large compared to these fishes so I'm not sure if I want to be moving her into this tank or not as it might throw off the balance or something, I'm not sure. Coming from SW, where I find a tank with 4 fish can be "crowded", to me this tank almost looks like it's totally overcrowded as it is. But I would like to get some rainbows or rasboras just to have a splash of schooling colour of some kind. My wife would like some mollies or swordtails because she has a coworker who has some and she likes the look of them. Sooo .. I'm not sure where it will go, we're "negotiating". She too thinks I might have already overstocked the tank, although with the sump and bioballs I think it has the capacity, so long as the fish choices are those that can get along with each other. I tested last night for nitrates and phosphates, there are zero nitrates but the phosphates are 0.13ppm (which actually sort of surprised me, I'm not sure what's up with that. I'm just using tapwater and it tests at 0.05 so I guess that's probably where it's coming from, I just thought that the plants might consume it. I have some more reading and learning to do to figure it all out I guess.)

Connie is that a Siganus puellus or a juvenile Siganus doliatus? It almost looks like two dark bands on the face there which means it could be doliatus. Or .. another species maybe, do you know?

Hi, here is a picture of my 65g planted tank project. It's about 2 months in (filled with water that is), give or take a couple of weeks. Hope you like!

Finaddict those pictures are awesome! Yours too, RDfishguy .. I've been eye'ing those Rainbows at Elite too. Very nice!! What size tank you guys keeping yours in?