# Planted 13 Gallon Widescreen



## Cmeister (Jul 5, 2009)

Looks like a good start. 

5x multipost.


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## harrynolan27 (Dec 31, 2015)

Cmeister said:


> Looks like a good start.
> 
> 5x multipost.


I know, my bad. I've asked the mods to remove the multi posts, I had no idea they had to be approved first.


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## Cmeister (Jul 5, 2009)

The Rotala on the right hand side looks sharp!


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## ckeep22 (Nov 25, 2015)

I almost bought one of these tanks. Is the new light you put in a direct replacement for the stock light?


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## harrynolan27 (Dec 31, 2015)

ckeep22 said:


> I almost bought one of these tanks. Is the new light you put in a direct replacement for the stock light?


What I did was cut the tabs that are holding the stock lights on and moved them forward with some double sided loctite tape, then I bought a 16" finnex stingray and used the included mounting brackets to bolt it to the hood. It fits perfectly between the hob filter cut out and the feeding hole. If someone else were to do the same as me I would suggest getting the 20" stingray as I've got about 5" of no light on each side. The 20" finnex needs 21" to mount inside the hood and it would fit perfectly and give better lighting. I've read somewhere that at 16" from the subrate the par for this light should be around 21-23 so I'm on the low side of light. Everything has new growth though, including algae haha but I think that's more of my nutrients and co2 dosing.


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## Oddie65 (Aug 4, 2016)

Thank you for posting this, I'm definitely going to have rig up something very similar to your setup, as I fell victim to a chain store selling me one of these as my first tank and upon further research, have learned that altogether the 9 LED diodes produce a total of 14 watts. (I know, not the best way to measure light but thats the ONLY information the Aqueon tech rep could provide on them.) Currently I have no fish in the tank because it's only been cycling for a week and my test kit is on the way since all of my LFS' were out. The tank had only been setup for a few hours before I found myself annoyed with how terrible, in my opinion, the silk plants I had looked in the tank. It was then I found out about live plants and have since been like a kid in a candy store since, soaking up all of the information I can about freshwater tanks, fish, plantlife, etc., (even ventured into reef tanks and saltwater, but you have to crawl before you can walk right?) So having learned my lesson and avoiding chain stores at all costs, I found a little hole-in-the-wall fish store (ended up being far bigger than it looked, but still all managed by a guy and his wife) and grabbed my thinning wallet and headed inside to grab some plants for my 13 gallon tank. I grabbed a bottle of Flourish Excel and plants like the rotala you have, amazon sword, anubias, java moss and my favorite the hornwort, as well as this thin wiry grass that I cannot for the life of me get the 411 on. Almost immediately after planting, and I still don't quite like how I have the tank laid out, I began to wonder if the lighting on this hood was even close to sufficient for my application. Turns out, from what I gathered from the rep today and from my research on appropriate aquarium lighting, those little LED's may be enough for the hornwort and moss, but that's it. I guess not many buy these tanks to begin with, let alone set them up for live plant applications because I have been struggling to find posts on how people lit their 13 gallon tanks and what lights they used/etc.. I contacted Aqueon again about additional lighting for this hood or to see if they sold one that fit this tank an had a sufficient light source, and they do not. In fact, the rep did NOT recommend their optibright light bar, and as it is I knew already finding a glass canopy for this tank so that I could even run a light bar safely was going to be a serious challenge. So I figured I would have to do some retrofitting, which is totally cool with me because I LOVE to tinker and make things my own anyways. A few hours in and I still couldn't find *reasonably priced* LED's that were bright enough to provide not just light, but light to the bottom of the tank, and were water resistant. And to me, there is definitely such a thing as overkill and I just can't justify spending $150+ on a lighting setup meant for a 30 gallon or more on a high light requirement tank or something along those lines. I concluded I needed to find some sort of light bar, since the hood is too low profile to comfortably try to squeeze some fixtures and CFL's in there. Of all the websites I checked, forums I read and the like, nobody had any real suggestions for adding more lighting to this tank, until I stumbled into this post. (Found a few on here regarding this tank, but none seemed to really be about lighting this tank so that one could have a semi-successful planted tank setup.) I didn't want to already have to work on getting a new tank, since this one still isn't even complete and it's my first tank ever. I want to do everything right the first time if possible, I'm a mild perfectionist. You posting this along with the exact light you used really saved me here, so again, thank you. I think I'm going to be finding myself on these forums more often, the community seems very informative and courteous to newcomers, before I registered I had visited here multiple times a day throughout this past week in search of any and all useful information and so far haven't been let down.


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## Pocho (Dec 3, 2018)

How is your 13 gallon widescreen aquarium coming along?


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