A little light help with 30 gallon

Jon Swanezy

Junior Poster
Dec 12, 2012
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Hey all, first post here.. Followed the site for a while and there is a ton of great info. Just looking for some help/suggestions on a few things..

Anyway, I have a Aquatic Life T5HO fixture over my 30 gallon, currently i have a 6700k, and the other light which was suggested to me at my LFS is a ATI Coral Plus 39w bulb, which is where I need the help.. The guy suggested it because it does give a nice color to the fish/tank, but im concerned this light won't assist in growing some of my other plants like my glosso field which i am trying to grow in right now, and I have some HC which is still slowly growing, but not like it did with my previous lights.. I also have some Rotala Mac (red) which has the tops very red, but the lower mid sections are ratty and im looking for better growth out of that as well..

My tank is co2 injected, and my tank does pearl a decent amount

I dose pfertz now, but will be switchin over to EI once im done with the pfertz.. Im assuming EI would probably get my Rotala Mac to grow better as well? It won't stand up straight completely either.

Any help would be much appreciated
 

dutchy

Plant Guru Team
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Jul 6, 2009
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Although it might be that the Coral plus is pleasing to your eyes, it won't help your plants much. There is some useful light for your plants, but it's just in the blue spectrum and I bet the PAR value of this tube is very low. Of course this will reflect in less growth.

If you want better growth, I suggest you use another 6700K bulb.
 

dutchy

Plant Guru Team
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Jul 6, 2009
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Not really, keep it between 3000 and 10000K. 6700 is a good average with some blue and red for plants and a lot of green for human eyes.