How Much Light???

[bamboofish]

Hi All,

A question for the plant people,

I have a 75 gal, 48" tank, with 5 -4 ft. flo. tubes
-4 x 40 watt and the standard bulb that came with it,(is it another 40 watt??)
Is that enough for good plant growth??? Would the 4x40 watt, or 160 be enough??

Rich

[fischkopp]

This always depends, what kind of plants you want to grow 

Basically, using the rule of thumb you have about 2W/gal. This is considered moderate lighting and allows you to use a fair amount of undemanding plants without any to fancy setups like CO2 and too great worries about fertilization.

Your candidates are Java Ferns & Moss, sword plants, some val, crypts of course, and a lot of stem plants - this is just on top of my head, I am sure others can fill in. Avoid carpeting and red plants, they wont make you happy.

So the answer in a nutshell: YES, go ahead and plant your tank. If you like it and want to have more fancy plants you can always upgrade later. 

[charlie]

Hi Rich , in addition to what fischkopp said , here are 2 links that will better expand on lights & planted tanks.
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/ah_main/mar1998.html

http://www.rexgrigg.com/light.htm
Hope this helps

[BigDaddy]

Oh... bamboofish got the full drill.  He came by my place today for some plants.