Light Requirements for plants

[Osiris1975]

I have a 45 gallon that I want to add plants to, and 4 60 watt bulbs. This comes to 5.3 watts per gallon. Is there any plant or fish I should not have in here? Anything that wouldn't like all that light?

[Dave66]

I have a 45 gallon that I want to add plants to, and 4 60 watt bulbs. This comes to 5.3 watts per gallon. Is there any plant or fish I should not have in here? Anything that wouldn't like all that light?

The majority of Cryptocoryne plants do best in moderate light, that is, slightly sheltered from the intense light. Anubis just gets algae on the leaves since it grows so slowly. You could keep stem plants like Cabomba at that light level, but that really depends on the grain size and plant nutrient level of your substrate, plus Co2 injection, if you want to keep stem plants properly.

Floating plants, like Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) over the main swimming area would be helpful, and would enable you to keep both Crypts and Anubis without problems. The floating plants would also enable you to keep a school of tetras and the like, since they look so attractive swimming through the light and shadow of floating plants.

Dave

[Osiris1975]

I should add another bit of info though I don't know if it makes any difference, 120 of those watts is at 6.5K, while the other 120 is at 13K. This is because I used to use this fixture for saltwater, and just replaced the actinic bulbs with the 6.5k ones.

Does this matter?

Also, my substrate is about 2 inches of the CaribSea planted tank substrate (the dark red stuff designed for plants) in the main body of the tank in the center covered by a layer ofthe white gravel, with a walled terrace on either end of the tank that I plan to plant more heavily, and as such, has an exposed 3-4 inches of the dark red plant substrate.

[ElizabethJKR]

Maybe my light question will be better here...

I've got an Aqueon 8000 Full Spectrum Daylight 17W T8 that is 24inches.

I've got a 30 gallon tank with Wisteria, Swords, Anubis, and Hornwort.

Should I invest in better lighting or is this alright for these plants? I seem to have a lot of die offs.

I've got a plant substrate and then gravel on top.

I use Flourish once a day for the plants in the morning.

[MCHRKiller]

I think other factors also play into the type of plants you can grow in a tank other than just WPG. The type of fixture being used, how far the bulbs are from the substrate, etc all play a role in what plants that should be kept. HOT5 fixtures for example are extremely intense forms of lighting when paired with single bulb reflectors. Having 4-5WPG of that type of lighting will yield a much more intense spectrum than would a fixture of T12s using a simple white painted reflector with the same WPG rating.

It will simply take more wattage from a lesser fixture to grow the same plants than it would from a more efficient fixture using better bulbs and reflectors.

[singlee]

Have you ever thought about choosing LED lights?

[Tankedagain]

I had stumbled upon this lil plant requirement chart while researching my plant's individual needs. Granted it is from a supplier and i just use this as a reference.

aquarium plant requirement

Hope this is of help!

[Jessica L]

Thanks Dave! I'm taking this list with me when I go buy plants. It's a great reference.