Lighting suggestions

[Grimm]

I am currently having trouble with plants and moss in my viv. Most of you who are knowledgeable enough to help me out will most likely be familiar with it by now. If you arent just search for "grimm's vivarium build"

Currently I have 2 of these 30" coralife lighting fixtures.
Coralife F/W T-5 Aqualight Double Strip Light-30" - Lighting - T-5 Fixtures at BigalsOnline
Each light has 1 full spectrum blub, aswell as a 6700K fluorescent blub. Adding both fixtures all up I currently only have 72 watts pumping into my 65-70 galon viv. My broms colours are fading, my moss has trouble growing/staying alive, and my (low light) submerged plants are staying alive without producing much new growth.

I sought advice at my favorite Aquarium shop a week ago and they suggested I buy a larger more powerful fixture. To sum it up, basically something with 4 bulbs (of different spectums i believe), around 150 watts, and higher intensity for 180-190$.

I have no problem spending money on something as important as lighting but I would first like your guy's imput. My tank is 24" high and 36" wide and 18" deep so I need something that will be able to penetrate to the lowest part of my tank. I'm looking for heavy growth from my terrestrial Riccia/Java moss, aswell as my submerged foreground plants.

What nerdy statistics should a tank like mine require to have healthy growth?
Also, what do you guys suggest if I dont want to go the "aquarium shop" route. If I can get something that meets my viv's needs, looks relatively good, and is cheaper, im fine with doing the Home Depot" put-it-together-yourself route lol.

Im sure you have seen a thread like this a thousand times but I couldnt find a concrete answer in the stickies about lighting. Any suggestions are welcome

[beckdg]

what are your dimensions grimm?

[Grimm]

Its in my 1st post but I should have made it more visible. 36" wide, 24" high, and 18" deep.

[Epiphile]

If you figure you won't be using the normal output fixtures, why not rip the guts out and put a HO ballast and lamps inside? Or do a custom hood? Four HO T5's would definitely get you where you want to be, I think, especially with good reflectors.

[beckdg]

polished aluminum reflectors?

is it just the plants on the ends, on the bottom, what?

i find pink bulbs (i think your full spectrum) to be horrible for plants so you may only be getting like 1.5 bulbs output. bluer bulbs penetrate better so you might try switching that out with a 10,000k instead. i know it sounds horrible and that might not be "the right color" but par is par and many 10000k bulbs put it out well.

moss should do well without bright light usually so, i don't think lighting is your problem with them... idk.

i could see where your water portion and plants near the corners would have their light blocked if you still have the light set up like this...


you may be able to take off those end pieces (what are they, more lights?) and put bends in your legs on the other fixture to hold it up higher like it is. it might help spread the light out.

i don't think 4 bulbs would be necessary personally, but 36" bulbs might be.

this plant...

looks like it could be hc. if it is you can expect it not to do so well unless all parameters are accounted for... not just light. you may even find co2 injection to be a necessity, idk. once i have enough i'll test that myself. apparently d. walstad has had success with it lately without co2 injection so that breaks that train of thought... if it continues.

your other plant in the water could use some root tabs if you haven't been using them. that might help tremendously.

for your moss (and best results with your other plants) you'll want to mist with clean (as in r/o, rain or distilled) water... periodically at the very least. for your aquatic plants you basically want the total opposite. you'll need all the minerals and ferts necessary to be there... at all times.

if you're going to go with a 4 bulb t5ho setup you might as well just shoot for hanging metal halide pendants above the tank. i think either option will be a little bright for your tree frogs though. at least with the mh you'll definitely have enough light and if it needs subduing you can just raise the fixture up some. just a thought.

one thing you can do to test whether it's your lighting or not is to add a couple cfl's directed right where the problems are. if that doesn't help it's probably not lighting and you don't have to waste a couple hundred dollars on a new fixture to fix a problem that doesn't exist.

as for the broms, i don't know. aaron might know better what they need. i have seen people who swear by bright light to keep the colors vivid and i've seen others who say it's not necessary and not right to do to your nocturnal creatures. i might agree with the latter of the 2 except i haven't grown any broms, lol.

basically, my point is make sure you're doing everything else right before you assume it's your lights that are the problem. i wouldn't want to throw away the money for such a fixture.

a decent place to find bright lights on the cheap (that came with recommendations)... fish need it;lights; food;Sponge.

another point to ponder... don't know if it's applicable, but... watering at night. seems to be a bad idea from what i've been reading cause it can cause temp drops that last longer and can be detrimental to the plants. maybe i've just been reading too much, idk, lol.

hmm... looked again and it definitely looks like mineral spots on your ???schefflera??? here...

so, yeah... i'd use clean water for misting, fert my water section and use root tabs... give that a month or 2 and see how that works out... then maybe add a cfl in a clamp or desk lamp in my problem areas and THEN consider another brighter lamp.

i'd hate to see you spend all that money for nothing.

[Grimm]

Yes both of the current Coralife fixtures have highly polished reflectors.

I seems to be most of my plants that arent up to par...My Broms especially, even the larger one directly below the lights has completely faded to green. Is this normal for a typical Home Depot brom to do? The upper brom has a pup that is roughtly 1/2 the size of the mother now if that matters. The lower brom has no new growth and has lost its colour. It is most likely due to the roots consistently being soaked though so I cant complain about that.

The pothos is fine, that sh*t will grow under a bed lol

I only had those end pieces on for a day or two when I took the picture...They are just unused Exo-Terra lighting fixtures that were used to help keep my temps down. I have had them off and they have been replaced with 2" long toilet paper rolls sections placed on end so they dont stop any of the light. lol high tech I know!

The moss I am growing is mainly Riccia, and some Java. I have read for both that they require high light and humidity. Also I have noticed that riccia has been most successful in highly lit tanks as a ground cover. Here is a quick video example of a great ground covered in riccia... YouTube - troyz22's Channel
I also have been misting my tank 1-2 times daily, usually in the morning and when I come home from work. Also the lowest temperature my tank will be is 68 at the ground, and 70 near the top. It is usualy near the ideal RETF temps needed day and night.

That submerged baby leaf plant has long died off. My plants are mainly low light plants, and submerged riccia. I will definately try the root tab suggestion for them though thanks!

I only use Distilled in this tank, for water additions, aswell as watering. Im not sure why the leafs have mineral spots from it but I assure you distilled is all I have ever used. (at least the huge bottles i buy say distilled lol)

I may try and switch out a pink bulb for a 10000K and see what happens. I honestly just want a my ground to be covered in riccia, and the 6700K may not be enough to penetrate that far down.

[froggsong]

So, is your light still so high above the tank? If so, you might be losing alot of light in the open space around the light (does that make sense?). Maybe building a reflector that goes all the way down to the tank would reflect all the light where it needs to be, instead of losing some around the edges.

My HD broms all go green eventually.... I had a whole lot of them that stayed red for ages sitting in a window, then when I put them in the tank, they went green within a month or so. Very disappointing... I'm not sure if it's the color of my light or the intensity, but there's something lacking. I have some new "daylight" CFLs that I'm going to switch to that are a bit bluer than the 6500K that I've been using, we'll see how those do... Let me know if you're begin to color up better after getting new bulbs.

[beckdg]

as for the broms, idk.

your water section i'd do tap water treated for chlorine instead of distilled.

all else seems well and you may be right... you might want higher light for that riccia, i don't know.

how well is the riccia doing submerged? i'd think that's further away from the light than your land section so it could be a good judge for the light you need.

the java doesn't seem to need high light to me. i've got it under a 10w cfl and it's growing in sub standard conditions i'd think as far as humidity goes since it's creeping out of the water where there's no top over my aquarium.

your temps may be a little low for a couple of them plants... java moss too depending what sp. it actually is.

i would definitely put a cfl or 2 in those hoods you had up there and see if that makes a difference before i bought another fixture... just me, i guess. if it helps then you know you need it and it's not a waste...

also... 3' t5ho is 39 watts a bulb... so 2 gives you 78 watts... already a slight bump (more likely the same light output) from your other 2 fixtures.

[Grimm]

Sorry its late so I'll reply more thouroughly tomorrow. CFL means what exactly? Im assuming it is a screw in bulb. Rite now I could turn both of those extra hoods on. Each of them has 2-26w reptiglow 10.0 coil bulbs.

I had one of them mounted above a 10 galon aquarium but the plants all died within a few weeks. I had a CO2 cannister, some awesome filter "cotton" stuff, and these white pellets things to remove ammonia. I used 3/4 distilled 1/4 treated tap, some great expensive substrate.....still everything died. I believe the coil lights I have make little effect on helping plants grow. This may just be the case with submerged plants however, idk.

I'll take a pic of my submerged riccia rite now and post it in the morning. It is growing, slowly, and very thin compared to my other riccia. Rite now I have my other riccia ontop of some felt which is touching my water. This way it keeps moist all day, and it gets misted 2 times a day. I JUST got it so I wont know how well it is doing for a while. Going from my other failed experiments with moss it may not be promissing lol.

[ill will]

CFL= compact fluroecent light bulb (te size of a standard incandescent, but with a spiral tube)

as for the Bromeliads losing color....most plants that have a red or purple color are that color because they thrive off of that color in the light spectrum.. I.E. infrared. infrared light is hot, whereas 6400k is cool (more white~blusish) and 10000k is all the way to the blue side of the spectrum. If you want to keep the red color, you need bright full spectrum bulbs that are high in infrared...however infrared light is literally HEAT rays, so you dont want to use that if you are already having problems maintaining temperature.
id suggest exo-terra or zoo-med...they make full spectrum blulbs, and the packaging shows a graph of the spectrum they produce if that helps (look for high reds and purples). and they're fluorecent so not hot. just keep in mind your moss prefers cool bluish (but bright) light, and the UV or infrared rays will kill it off or at least hinder it. so its a toss up...