# Lighting Planted Tank - Glo T5s



## Inflade (Mar 24, 2006)

starting a planted tank again for a mac, using black fourite with peat plates underneath as a substrate.

as far as lighting is concerned, i have a Hagen, T5 Glo unit thats not in use. It holds two 39 watt bulbs.

my question,

what bulbs? 2 life glows? 2 power glows? one of each? im assuming the atinic has no purpose in a planted tank, but i may be wrong.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Can you post the bulb specs? id probably do the life or powerglow depending on their k rating


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## LS1FDRx7 (Mar 6, 2007)

If your going for a heavy planted tank for your Macs, I would go with Giesemann Powerchrome Aquaflora and Midday bulbs. They carried the 39watts in 36'' light fixture as well. You won't be disappointed. Giesemann makes the best bulbs!


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## Onkiebonkie (Apr 5, 2010)

I always use phillips lamps. Important is they have a colour temperature of around 3000 Kelvin. This is a good spectrum for planthgrowth and these lamps have a good growefficiency. BUT, this gives a yellow'ish look to your tank. To compensate this, many people combine lamps of 3000 kelvin with 6000+ kelvin lamps. This way the overall lighting has a good spectrum and the overall colour is natural.

Don't just use lamps that are supposed to be good. Do some research and select them according to lighttemperature and growrate.

I atm use 2x t8 philips 830 (3000 k) and 2 x philips 865 (6500 k). lightinghours 20.000 + hours and will only drop to around 85% lighting output. So no need to change them before they actually fail.

Ill post a picture of my aquarium in a few so you can see the result


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## Inflade (Mar 24, 2006)

Onkiebonkie said:


> I always use phillips lamps. Important is they have a colour temperature of around 3000 Kelvin. This is a good spectrum for planthgrowth and these lamps have a good growefficiency. BUT, this gives a yellow'ish look to your tank. To compensate this, many people combine lamps of 3000 kelvin with 6000+ kelvin lamps. This way the overall lighting has a good spectrum and the overall colour is natural.
> 
> Don't just use lamps that are supposed to be good. Do some research and select them according to lighttemperature and growrate.
> 
> ...


Where do I acquire a fixture that will hold 4 of these bulbs? Would definatly want to see some pictures!


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## JoeDizzleMPLS (Nov 5, 2007)

Inflade said:


> I always use phillips lamps. Important is they have a colour temperature of around 3000 Kelvin. This is a good spectrum for planthgrowth and these lamps have a good growefficiency. BUT, this gives a yellow'ish look to your tank. To compensate this, many people combine lamps of 3000 kelvin with 6000+ kelvin lamps. This way the overall lighting has a good spectrum and the overall colour is natural.
> 
> Don't just use lamps that are supposed to be good. Do some research and select them according to lighttemperature and growrate.
> 
> ...


Where do I acquire a fixture that will hold 4 of these bulbs? Would definatly want to see some pictures!
[/quote]

Philips bulbs are OK for T8 fixtures, I pick up the 6500k Philips at Home Depot for my shop light fixtures, the 3000k would be REALLY yellow, I used 3 6500k over my 75 gallon and had to balance it out with a 10,000k bulb to make it a bit more pleasing to the eye. Most planted tank guys go with bulbs between 6500k and 10,000k.

Since your fixture is a T5HO, I would definitely check out the Geisemann bulbs if you have the cash, I know a lot of people like the Midday or the Aquaflora/Midday combo. Otherwise the Life-Glo is pretty popular, and some like to balance it out with a Power-Glo.


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## Onkiebonkie (Apr 5, 2010)

Inflade said:


> I always use phillips lamps. Important is they have a colour temperature of around 3000 Kelvin. This is a good spectrum for planthgrowth and these lamps have a good growefficiency. BUT, this gives a yellow'ish look to your tank. To compensate this, many people combine lamps of 3000 kelvin with 6000+ kelvin lamps. This way the overall lighting has a good spectrum and the overall colour is natural.
> 
> Don't just use lamps that are supposed to be good. Do some research and select them according to lighttemperature and growrate.
> 
> ...


Where do I acquire a fixture that will hold 4 of these bulbs? Would definatly want to see some pictures!
[/quote]

I just make the fixture myself. I don't know how it is called in english, but the electronic "pre-transformator" thing (it's called an EVSA here) doesn't need a starter in the circuit so it is realy easy to install. Saves you alot of money too.....

Here is a quick video of my tank bubbling away. It has been running like this for 3 weeks now. Still trimming and shaping the form. There is some algea left from before this setup, but it's getting less and less. I have to trim everything every week since it is growing like crazy and is full every week. I even have to dose extra nitrates and phosphates to keep up with my plants appetite.






Colours come off as yellow at the first part, but at 0:17 you see the real colour of the lighting using 2x 830 + 2x 865 (camera is kind of crap)

I realy like philips lamps because they have a special coating inside wich only brings them down to 85% during 20k hours lighting. That's ruffly 5 years of no replacing.


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