More about my new setup

chris wrote:
1.5 to 2 watts?!?! Oh boy.. well it may be severely underlit then. Is
this an ideal number or a minimum? I mean, I bought a Hagen kit with a
Marine (I think) brand hood that came with a 20W AquaGlow bulb. I mean
are we talking having to replace the ballast or hood completely in
order to keep plants alive? The light is on twelve hours per day on a
timer and the substrate is about 3/4-1" at the front to 3 or 4" in the
back of the tank.

Hopefully these things will survive, as aquatic gardening was one of
the real attractions of becoming an aquarist.

Chris

Chris,
1.5 to 2 watts of FLUORESCENT light is regarded as "adequate", and I
find it's a very good amount. However, I don't use CO2 or a lot of
fertilizers, and people who do that, may use quite a lot more light than
I do. There's a rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants group where you can ask
questions, but be warned. Those folks are very serious about plants
and they tend to favour high-tech solutions.

Your first post says 33 gallons, so you've about 0.6 watts per gallon. I
hope that's fluorescent lighting; if it's incadescent there's no hope of
growing plants other than Java moss unless you have daylight, too.

I find that my aquariums that get some daylight, tend to have good plant
growth. In the distant past I had a tall 30 gallon aquarium with two
inadequate incadescent bulbs totalling 50 watts, in which the Elodia and
Vallisneria did quite well. This aquarium got lots of daylight,
including a couple of hours of direct sun each day!

So, if your aquarium gets some daylight, you may be able to successfully
grow a variety of plants after all. For you next smallish aquarium, you
might consider a canopy with two or more fluorescent tubes. You can also
build your own lighting box using fixtures from the hardware store, and
for larger aquariums homemade solutions may be preferable. My 90-gallon
plant aquarium has a home-made wooden hood with three fluorescent
fixtures totalling five 48" tubes, and 200 watts. It seems to be just
about right for the easy, lower-light plants that I am able to grow.

Best of luck with your aquarium, and plastic plants look ok too .
Also, Java moss, Anubias and possibly some Crypts can grow with very
little light indeed.
Steve