darkangel Posted January 7, 2010 Report Share Posted January 7, 2010 The time has come to start planning my planted tank upgrade. The tank is 140gal 6ft long tank, the lighting that I have is one 5ft fixture that had 8 x 34 watt T-5s. I have upgraded the ballasts so the fixture now holds 8 x 54 watt 48 inch T-5s, I am also adding 2 - 48 inch fixtures that contain 2 x 54 watt T-5s and 2 - 18 inch 2 x 18 watt T-5 fixtures. The total lights will be 12 x 54 watt and 4 x 18 watt giving me a total of 720 watts = 5.143 watts per gal. I will be setting the lights to come on at different times, eg. the 2 18 watt fixtures to come on first, one hour later 1- 2 x 54 watt, one hour later the other 2 x 54 watt, and one hour after that the 8 x 54 watt. The bulbs will be a combination of 18,000k and 6700k. I was thinking of letting all the lights burn for about 6 to 7 hours and then start shutting off in the reverse order they came on. I will be running pressurized Co2 as well as dry ferts. Any comments and/or opinions are welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jvision Posted January 7, 2010 Report Share Posted January 7, 2010 I like it. IMO 18,000K is a little blue, but it will definitely keep the internodal zones on your stem plants quite short. What are you going to be running for filtration? You won't need much for actual filtration, but you'll probably want some decent flow - and FX5 or two won't be too much. Conversly a decent canister along with a couple Hydor 2s would be nice. You know... with that much lighting, you may want to think about adding some salt, live rock and corals - could make a really nice planted tank! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkangel Posted January 8, 2010 Author Report Share Posted January 8, 2010 I like it. IMO 18,000K is a little blue, but it will definitely keep the internodal zones on your stem plants quite short. What are you going to be running for filtration? You won't need much for actual filtration, but you'll probably want some decent flow - and FX5 or two won't be too much. Conversly a decent canister along with a couple Hydor 2s would be nice.You know... with that much lighting, you may want to think about adding some salt, live rock and corals - could make a really nice planted tank! That's why I want the 18,000k bulbs. I have an FX5, but still working on installing a Y conector with a couple ball valves to even out the flow for 2 spraybars. Or I may use 2 marineland C-530 canisters. As far as the salt, live rock & corals, as soon as it is empty and I add a couple more light fixtures to the canopy and pick up a few more pieces of equipment my 72 will be my on-ramp to the salty side. I was thinking about setting up a brackish tank again after 25+ years, but for as close as it will be I may as well go for the gold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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