Silvania Growlux

Schalk, you can also try and get the Phillips Daylight 6500K tubes in the diffrent wattages as your local hardware/electrical store. I've paid R30-R40 for a 36 W T8 Tube.
This is realy nice white, bright light and is what I and several other (experienced) members use!

 

Hey everyone!!! Thanx for all the help! I went and bought just one boyu light with a very blue spectrum and i'm very happy with the effect!!!

The first pic is of the tank before with the pink effect that i did not like at all! The second pic is after i just added the other light and i got it for just R45 witch I am more than willing to pay! This realy lit up the tank more.

So i now have:
2x30w Silvania Growluw
1x30wAqua glo
1x39wboyu

I know it is only 120w and i have 240l of water but i think its fine for now!

All of the best

Schalk

 

Nice schalkv710 ... I think you might get better plant growth if you kill the air-stone ... think you are loosing way to much CO2 and with that extra light you will need all the CO2 you can get in your tank.

 

Ok but will there be enough O2 for the fish?

 

It looks good, and I see what you meant about the pink.

Just switch the air-stone on at night for the fish. The plants produce O2 during the day.

 

yeah .. also run your tank at the lower temperature end for the fish in it. More O2 in water at lower temperature and fish use more oxygen at higher temperatures because their metabolic rates increase. Your fish stock seems low - you only want slight surface circulation to allow for gas exchange.

 

Ok this helps alot! i have a spray bar from my canister filter, but its under the water coz of the tanks brace but the outlets are directed up at the surface so there is some wate movment. Will this be enough?

 

Should be fine ..

 

would you suggest CO2 system for the tank? Wil it be worth it? Its gona set me back about R2000. The guy at the lfs said he will order me 1 for about that price, do you think this will have all the equipment i wil need? I dont know much about co2

 

You should be fine .. master what you have. CO2 means more light, more nutrients and a bigger chance of things going very wrong. For 2k you can setup a very nice second tank ;-) then you can have two experiments going at the same time.

 

Ja i know! Im gona setup a second tank next month for some rams i wana try my hand at breeding them!

 

http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Aquarium_Lighting.html

Very good article on lighting. You can look past the technical stuff and read the guys summery or comments to the end.

Apparently SHO CF Bulbs are some of the best lights you can get for your Tank

 

Ok f-fish i just moved my spray bar to the top of the brace so now there is a nice surface agitation but not that rough.

 

Cool - like the photo ... keep an eye out for water splashing etc.

Side note - as the spray bar clogs water might run of the brace onto the floor ... might want to move it under the brace. so even if the bar is under the brace that will be enough surface flow.

OK now I feel old .. is the brace on the inside of the tank? or flush with the surface ? If inside you should be fine - just check for spillage.

 

okay I have the T5 Sylvania Luxline plus FHO:
FHO 39W/865
FHO 54W/865
The 865 refers to lamp temperature, in this case it is 865 where the 65 refers to 6500K...

The Sylvania Luxline plus is compared to the following lamps:
Osram Lumilux FQ
Philips TL5 Ho
GE T5 Starcoat HO

 

Thanx dolphin...fish the bracing is not flush with the top its on the inside

 

the very blue light you got is a bad idea! since you say its very blue, I assume its in the 20 000K range and this blue light spectrum will encourage algae growth...

change it for a 10 000k, as Zoom advised right in the beginning...

and post the model number of the sylvania...PS the sylvania tubes can come in 2700K, 3000K, 3500K, 4000K and 6500K...hence the need to confirm the model number.

I dont advise you try co2 until you stabilise your tank and get the hang of the basics in this tank...stay with low light plants, like the Java Ferna and Anubias for now and then look at co2 later...the addition of co2 also effects the pH level of the water

CO2 is a factor of
- Lighting
- Nutrients
- Temperature
as any of the above, including the co2, increases or decreases then the others must increase/decrease proportionately. if not, then you will have plants die or algae thrive or a host of other issues...

 

lol ok thanx dolphin. will not add the Co2 for now... when i said very blue i just meant more in the blue spectrum coz the other lights i have are all in the blue spectrum. here is some pics of the "blue light"

Dolphin, in regard to the growlux lamps, there is a code on both the boxes thats the same. it just says: code: 0000711. Hope this will help.

 

pic of the colour spectrum

 

the first image of the graph shows where this tubes color spectrum peaks - +/-420nm which is where Actinic (very blue) light peaks...

10000K peaks at the other end of the spectrum...

Vis posted a link to some good info on these concepts...