What is considered low moderate and high lighting?

[waack]

wow turned into a debate i wasn't expecting, I know LED can prove more useful but I was only asking because that's what i have at the moment. I just wanted other opinions on whether these charts were accurate at least as a guide, I make no claim to have made the charts and simply found them on google images didn't look any further than that

[mizzoutank]

If you want a long debat, check these two reads...
and i'll sadly admit, ive read every post. haha
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=184368
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=160396

They both have extra graphs to read.

Regardless of the chart, just take it as a grain of salt, some recordings are done in open air, some underwater, some have outside light affecting it. there are too many small variables that come into play when you are looking at par values.

One thing for certain though, is in the next 5 years, it'll be all LED for aquariums.
I love mine and have nothing but positive reviews for it.
LED's provide a crisp/clean light, and look to the human eye, less bright...but that is because of the spreading (or lack thereof)

If you want low/mod lights and set up, you can find reasonable priced LED set ups.
If you want high tech lights/set up with pressurized co2, you are in deep pockets regardless of led vs bulb

my personal experience is with the finnex fugeray. great fixture, solid and without any effort-it grew plants in my old 40b. grew swords and wisteria, no ferts just that light and good water changes.

just my .02

[waack]

Not looking forward to the day i have to replace all my T5 light to LED lol. But yeah I have read and spoken to many dedicated LFS owners and they all say LED's are the future, I'm a uni student so any amount of money is gunna put me out of pocket at this current stage, but yeh I'm using the charts as a guide and was just surprised that the lights I had are more useful than i thought. Thank you for your input and advise though i appreciate it

[FreakyFishie]

Welcome :). I'm a university student too so I know where you're at, but your tanks are WAY bigger than mine o.0 I just ordered the freshwater kessil light waiting for shipping is the worst >_< The "Generalized Amazon Biotope 36 gal with:" in my sig is a link to see my tank :)

[Lady Hobbs]

You should cite the source or at least give credit to the person that went through the trouble of providing that info.

Funkman is right on here. Using info from other sites is getting into copyright issues. And it's easier to post the link, anyway.

Lights tend to confuse me some, as well. When I used compact lighting, it was easy enough to figure out 1-2 watts per gallon was low light, 2-3 was medium light and 3+ was considered high light. I worked on that scale and it worked for me and my plants. Then here comes the T5HO bulbs and I get to spend time scraping green spot algae off the glass at 2 watts per gallon and the lights off more than on. *sigh