[thefishmanlives]

CO2 is never pointless and works quite well in low light setups. Produces lusher growth and keeps algae at bay. the 18x2 COralife aqualight T5 fixture puts out pretty good light. The 65x1 PC fixture with poor reflector would probably give around the same amount of light with either. WPG is NOT a good way to determine actual light that you get to the plants. T5 produces more light per watt the PC. No offense but im afraid this is poor advice. :icon_hang

65w for sure, the other one is pretty low lighting for a 29g and would make CO2 pretty pointless IMO

 

[thefishmanlives]

With DIY co2 your asking for trouble with 13o watts, but with pressurized co2, its pretty easy to keep things under control with proper ferts, even for a newbie. I would actually recommend 65x2 instead of 65x1 with pressurized co2 especially if your talking about a coralife fixture with poor reflector. Your even good to go with a 65x2 with a good flector such as the AH supply, many people run that all day on here and run it smoothly. Ive run 65x2 over my 29 with no problems at all as long as I kept my co2 stable and ferts in check. If you felt it was too much light you could always use the 2nd bulb as a few hour burst. Better to have more light on tap then not enough. Nowadays with the use of seachem excel, its very easy to keep algae at bay in high light setups even if your a little off with things here and there. Stable co2 is a must tho. Not really all that much can go wrong if you can follow simple instructions. Fertilize enough & co2 must be stable. Thats about it. :spy:

I just upgraded from 1x65 watt to 2x65 watt because my ground cover plants seemed to struggle with just 1x65 (glosso mainly) and I got a good deal on a light fixture. With DIY CO2, you might want to just keep the 65 watts. Plants didn't do too badly, and with DIY CO2 which tends to be a bit unruly, 65 watts is probably your best bet. Even with pressurized CO2 and a full battery of ferts, I'm cringing a bit at how much something could go wrong with 130 watts of pure lighting power over a 29 gallon (~4.5 wpg)