# Best Lighting For Planted Tanks



## IANNOZZI (Nov 14, 2005)

HI ALL!

What's the best lighting for planted tanks--I intend on a 96watt 67k compact--is there a better light?? My tank is 29 gallons--96 watts is all I can get over the 20 inch wide hex top of my tank


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

IANNOZZI said:


> HI ALL!
> 
> What's the best lighting for planted tanks--I intend on a 96watt 67k compact--is there a better light?? My tank is 29 gallons--96 watts is all I can get over the 20 inch wide hex top of my tank


First of all when determining the lighting you should know what type of plants you want. Are you going to grow low light plants or do you want to grow the red plants and high light level plants?

A good general light level should be determined by WATTS PER GALLON or WPG. That should be at least 2.5wpg.


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## IANNOZZI (Nov 14, 2005)

I will be above 2.5 watts per gallon--my man question is there a differance b/t 6700k and 10,000k?


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## aquaphish (Dec 20, 2002)

I hope I am corrected if I am not correct on this. 

A 5500K light is closest to the light when the sun is over head and the higher K is closer to sunset. In other words the 5500K will penetrate the water deeper than a 10000K. There is also issues with color saturation with different Kalvin. 

I use 2 5500K and 2 6700K in my 40 gal. and this works good for me.


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## Rex Grigg (Dec 10, 2002)

aquaphish said:


> I hope I am corrected if I am not correct on this.
> 
> A 5500K light is closest to the light when the sun is over head and the higher K is closer to sunset. In other words the 5500K will penetrate the water deeper than a 10000K. There is also issues with color saturation with different Kalvin.
> 
> I use 2 5500K and 2 6700K in my 40 gal. and this works good for me.



Not correct.

5500k light is closest to a tropical noon. Higher k light is normally more blue. But there are of course exceptions to this.

But generally the higher the k the more blue or even white the light will appear. A lot of it boils down to personal preference.


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## Betowess (Dec 9, 2004)

You might need to go presuurized CO2 if you go much above 2.5 watts/gallon to keep the algae in control. But I suppose that is a little off topic.


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## jgc (Jul 6, 2005)

I have heard it is mostly about personal preference - as long as you do not go over 10k (ie 20k is too high). Higher K in general is "whiter" or "blue-er", but truely think that bulb brand and bulb types has more variation and K is a fairly week guideline at best. I have also heard that most people complain about the light being too yellow if you get below 5k

I have had good luck with pearling with both odno at 6.6k and hqi at 10k. Due to the nature of the lights and reflectors - I think the odno got more light into the tank, but the hqi had neet effects and gets plenty in anyway - enough to cause a sunburn if I work under it for too long (joke - I think. The heat will turn my skin red for a bit.)


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