JCLewis814,
Only the reflector will be 30" wide. The CF bulbs are <24" wide so you do end up with some light fall off at the ends of the tank.
I have two 65W Coralife Aqualights (one 6700K and one 50/50) over my 29 gal...the rear one is pushed over to the left side so that it better covers a stand of stem plants on that side. The front one is more centered since the right side of the tank is a stand of Vals that don't need as much light.
The reason I didn't go with two 6700K bulbs is that it made the tank a bit too green/yellow for my taste.
bh, i found the 50/50 bulbs to be tooo artificial looking, which is perfect for corals, but weird on planted tanks....
i have a tank experiment right now with 50/50 bulbs trying to grow duckweed, frogbit and java moss...
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the java moss is stringy, the duckweed is green and yellow and the new leaves of the frogbit are yellow....a drastic change from the daylight bulbs..
I agree that the 50/50 on it's own is a bit stark, but in combination with the daylight bulb it evens out.
On my 40 gal tank I ordered a Aqualight with a 50/50 bulb by mistake, but I combined it with Hagen Life-Glo and Power-Glo tubes and find that it looks pleasing to my eye and my plants have been responding well to the combo...in the case of some swords, too well! I get mid-day pearling to the point that it looks like my tank is filled with 7-Up. .
interesting, it's good to hear your experience with it.
I have one question, have you ever tried just using the powerglo and see if you still get the 7up effecT? or is it the special combination that provides that?
Never tried just using the NO tubes alone. I have them on a separate timer than the 50/50 strip, and they come on 30 minutes earlier, but the intensity of light does not compare to the 50/50.
The plants don't start heavy pearling until all the lights have been on for three hours or so. The good thing that I can say is that I can't attribute any algae growth to the bulb...wish I could say the same about my iron dosing.
I have one more quick question. If I chose to run only one light in the 30" JBJ Deluxe Light fixture instead of 2 (to reduce the wattage in the beginning), would the reflector still be effective? I was just thinking that I could buy the deluxe now (instead of the standard single-light fixture) to give myself the possibility of additional light in the future if I needed to have it. But, I'm not sure if the double-light model will work will well with only one bulb.
Thanks for the info about the fixture before. That's good stuff to know
Jared,
I'm not familiar with the JBJ fixtures, but if it's got a good reflector it should work OK with a single bulb. Even with the two 65W fixtures over my 29, it's not excessively bright...but a lot of that can be attributed to the large Rubin sword that's created a canopy over the back quarter of the tank .
I have a 29 gallon sitting around looking for attention. But I'm thinking about 2X55 ah kits for it. I have pressurized co2, and ferts on hand. Looking for updated opinions.
Is this definately too much light for the setup? Better to go with one?
Or just go with the Coralife 65w? Good enough to provide good coverage?
Hey John, I have 1x55 watt on my 29 gallon, and it looks to be plenty of light. I used a 2x55 watt bright kit from AH that I got from Robert. I use a 29 on each strip. I havent put many plants in at all....if i do. This set of 29 gallons are going to breed plecs. But looking at my 50 gallon with 260 watts on it...the 29s are definately lit up. Hope this helps.
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