# Lighting Specs for Dwarf Baby Tears



## Kaitlin (Jan 27, 2013)

I absolutely love the look of Dwarf Baby Tears, but from everything I've read, they are a pretty finicky plant to keep healthy. The lighting seems to be the biggest problem.

I've seen so many different opinons on exactly how much light the plants needs that it's beginning to seem like a very individualized answer - there's not a formula to figure out what you need for your tank. 

So, can anyone with more experience with DBT give me insight on changes I need to make to my tank? I just picked up an eight gallon tank with a 13W 6,400°K Fluorescent lighting system. It's only about 13" high. I was kind of figuring I would need about 6-10 more watts to have ideal light, so if I put a desk lamp near the tank or have the window open, will that be enough to supplement? Or, since it's a smaller/shallow tank, can I get away with the lower lighting? 

I will be using pressurized CO2 and fertilizer.


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 4, 2008)

In my experience, it is not the lighting, but maintaining CO2 and fertilizer levels that are more critical to having a nice carpet of HC.

I assume your 13W right now is just a CFL bulb; keep in mind that the WPG guideline has long been since disused, so getting more light is not as simple a matter as saying you will add 6-7 watts of light.

However, you should be OK with two 13W CFL bulbs.


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## ChadRamsey (Nov 3, 2011)

my experience has been quite the opposite of Darkblades.

Prior to my current set up, i had the EI dosing down and the co2 on high flow and dialed in but my lighting was medium at best. I tried 2 seperate times to grow HC, and failed miserably

So, in the same tank i am using the same co2 set up and same EI dosing. BUT i dished out a chunk of change to upgrade my lighting to Tek fixtures and geissman bulbs and my third attempt at HC is a complete success!! Its out of control actually. 

So in my opinion, lighting is just as important as co2 and ferts for good horizontal growth.

Check out the first page of my 125 journal to see the growth rate i am getting. Literally i cant trim it enough.


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## amberoze (May 22, 2012)

And I have had yet a different experience that either of the two before me. I grow mine under medium light (at best), no ferts or co2 at all, and it carpets, slowly.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2


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## wicca27 (May 3, 2009)

i used what totaled about 35 watts of clf daylight bulbs ( tow 10 watt spiral and one 15 watt) and they are 6500k. i used diy co2 for a while and when i stopped that i would use jobes plant food spikes when it started to yellow. what i would do is cut a little slice off the end of the stick and quarter that and stick that under the dwarf baby tears and it worked well. ended up losing it when i moved though but want try try again one of these days


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