How much lighting should I have for a tank that is 30" long by 12" wide and 18" deep? (29 gallons tank).


I currently have a 40W fluorescent light that I leave on for about 8-10 hours a day. I don't have any live plants, but I have been having a problem with brown algea and my black moor is losing his black color -- so I'm wondering if I have enough light.

I have a hex tank that is 24" deep and I was having a heck of a time seeing into it with just one 20" striplight on it. I got a natural sunlight bulb that was rated at 5000 K and it DRAMATICALLY improved my visibility. The color of the bulb washed out my fish a little, so I put a second strip on there with a warm color bulb in it and now I have the best of both worlds. I'd look at the K value of the bulbs you buy for it.

Tim

Hmm, my tank has 2 power glo 18 inch bulbs right now. I believe theyre rated at 7500k? I could be wrong but in any case the color is pretty blu-purplish .. would that be bad for the plants and the fish? I do have a spare 5000K I could mix in with the power-glo .. but i'm only going to do that if there are drawbacks to the light being too blupurplish?

Power-glos are great for aquatic plants! I have a power-glo and an aqua-glo on my 29g tank (40W total) and no brown algae at all. My anacharis, money wort and Java fern are doing great.

Double check the wattage of your fluorescent bulb because for 29g aquariums there aren't 40Watt bulbs. You can only get 20Watt fluorescent bulbs. You can get more if you get into power compact fluorescent (~60Watts).