Fishguy2727

Anyone done any?

I want to get more light on the 150 so it can be as well planted as the 75. The current lighting is a double fluorescent strip, so there are 4 3' bulbs, two on each side. They are T8. I want to add more light.

I have been looking around and it seems like the best option may be a vanity light inside of a light box, the box would have aluminum foil on the inside as a reflector. I found a 3' one at Home Depot today that has 6 sockets, each up to 100 watts. This strip is only $35. So one on each side of the tank would be great, that would give me 12 more bulbs on there.

The bulbs I plan on using are the screw-in compact fluorescent ones. Home Depot has some and they show whether they are white, reddish white, or blue white. The largest in the color I want are 100 watt equivalents at 27 watts. I was also thinking that because of the design of these bulbs that the vanity light strip being mounted sideways in the light box instead of facing down may provide more light directly to the tank, less being reflected off the reflector before going into the tank.

Does this sound good? What changes would you make?

Keep in mind I am not wanting TONS OF LIGHT, I want it like my 75. Technically low light be the plants do really well. The main issue here is that the 150 is deeper, so I don't think I currently have enough light to penetrate to the bottom for the plants to do really well. The ones that are doing well in there now are tall enough to reach close to the light. I don't want to have to use CO2, but I am now a huge fan of Flourish Excel, so I plan on using that.

I want the 150 to be well planted, to give that 'wow, and people say you can't have plants with goldfish' impression.