50 Gallon lighting (newb question) - Lighting

Tezak · 10-06-2009, 09:22 AM

I am starting up my first planted aquarium. I've had several aquariums in the past but they were all cichlids, so I didn't bother with plants. It's a 50 gallon tank and I've been told my 65 watt light fixture isn't going to cut it. I'm looking at buying a 192 watt Power Compact lamp with two fixtures off eBay.

The fixture comes with a 96W 12000K CF bulb and an actinic blue 96W CF bulb. From a short browse around this forum it looks like this kind of lighting is for a marine aquarium and will produce a lot of blue light.

Since I know very little about lighting, and all I want at this point is lighting that will make my plants do well and look nice, can someone recommend to me a good type of bulb to use? Does that fixture look decent?

Vadimshevchuk · 10-06-2009, 11:38 AM

its an oddysea fixture and its has crappy reflectors from wht i heard. its cheaper at aquatraders.com
also i would go with t5 im sick of changing pc.

Tezak · 10-06-2009, 12:32 PM

I looked at the T5 HO lights on Aqua Trader. Again they come with 12000K and Actinic Blue light bulbs, and they don't even carry 6700K bulbs for the 36" fixture. How do those look in a freshwater planted aquarium?