# 45 gallon bowfront lighting



## Haldane86 (Jan 25, 2012)

looking to upgrade the lighting on my 45 gallon bowfront

Stock:
Aqua-Glo 25 Watt T8 Fluorescent Bulb 
Fluorescent Canopy with Efficient Electronic Ballast
http://ca-en.hagen.com/Aquatic/Aquariums/Starter-Kits-All-Glass/15231

I would like to be able to keep the existing canopy and such as going topless :lol: isnt an option for me as I have 2 small children and a pile of cats that cant stay away from the 
top of the tank. Not looking for massive light output just enough to put me in the range of moderate+

Any ideas or pointers would be great


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## Aswain (Mar 20, 2011)

I use a dual Coralife t5 normal output on my 48 gallon bowfront tank. Its good for lowlight plants. I don't add fertilizer or co2 and most green plants grow good in my opinion. Red plants either turn green or die, i believe cause lack of proper nutrients. Now I use a mixture of seachem onyx sand and flourite black and red for substrate tho.

Here is pic of tank before I mix in flourite red and onyx sand.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

Aswain said:


> I use a dual Coralife t5 normal output on my 48 gallon bowfront tank. Its good for lowlight plants. I don't add fertilizer or co2 and most green plants grow good in my opinion. Red plants either turn green or die, i believe cause lack of proper nutrients. Now I use a mixture of seachem onyx sand and flourite black and red for substrate tho.


Yes, that's your problem. Light is only one end of the solution. Nutrients, including carbon (CO2 or Glute) goes a long way. Your substrate only provides a bit of trace like iron in the flourite (not sure about Onyx).



Haldane86 said:


> looking to upgrade the lighting on my 45 gallon bowfront
> 
> Stock:
> Aqua-Glo 25 Watt T8 Fluorescent Bulb
> ...


What is your objective? What plants are you trying to grow? IMO, if you are going to grow low requirements plants, the lower the light you can get away with, the better. I'm growing Anubias and Java Fern just fine in my 46 Bow which is essentially the same setup. My plecos provide the nutrients and I keep the light at 6 hours a day to minimize problems with algae and such.

If you want to add Glute (like Excel or Metricide) or inject CO2, then I would suggest a dual tube T5HO would more than suffice. A twin tube Hagen GLO will provide 78 W of high quality light into the tank. The choice of bulbs also makes a major difference. I found the Sunblasters and Giesemann bulbs put out way more light than the Coralife bulbs. There's a reason they're much cheaper. The Sunblasters are cheap and good, but you don't have any bulb choices. I am only running 4 x 24w Giesemann T5HO retrofits with GLO reflectors in a 100 gallon square tank and it's providing me with more than enough light to grow all kinds of plants, including Ludwigia repens and Alternathera reineckii, which are both brilliantly red plants, and my tanks is 24" deep.


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## jbyoung00008 (May 16, 2011)

Coralife t5 double strip light works well. I have put it on a few people tanks and they got great growth in their plants. Its small so it most likely will fit your canopy. Its basically half the height of a normal flourecent fixture. King eds sells them for around $60 depending how long your tank is. It comes with a 6700k bulb which is perfect for plants and a colormax bulb which is useless. If you ask the guy downstairs his name is Chris to swith the colormax bulb for a 10,000k he will usually do it at no extra cost. I recomended that light because it usually fits perfect in place of your existing stock canopy fixture. 

As for dosing a whole whack load of nutrients. IMO thats up to you. Not everyone one wants a super high teck tank or to be working on it all the time. I added the same light to my dads 33g and all his plants are growing great. He never adds any fertz barely works on his tank. He does have flourite substrate. 

Good luck. I can post a pic of the light I am talking about if you want

Cheers


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

I agree with the post above about the Coralife T5, especially if you're not going CO2. But one thing I forgot to add is the Versa Top glass top. Get that and you can put whatever light you want on it, including LED, pendants, DIY, what have you.


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

You can pick up order a couple of Sunblaster T5HO from MyKiss and retrofit it in the canopy. Not overly difficult.


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## 2wheelsx2 (Apr 21, 2010)

gklaw said:


> You can pick up order a couple of Sunblaster T5HO from MyKiss and retrofit it in the canopy. Not overly difficult.


Problem, Gordon, is that his tank is 3 feet long and the Sunblasters only come in 2 or 4 foot lengths, plus the Odyssey 2xT5HO is $65, while 2x24" Sunblasters are $50 so for $15 you can just plop it on there.


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## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

get the 3 foot LED


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