re: Watts/gallon guidelines

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
Subject: re: Watts/gallon guidelines
From: "shaji (s.) bhaskar" <bhaskar at bnr_ca>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 1995 11:01:00 -0400
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>From: nguyenh at nosc_mil (Hoa G. Nguyen)
>Date: Tue, 18 Jul 95 14:56:34 PDT
>Subject: Re: Helping a friend out and Alternative source of CO2
>
>Actually, I noticed that the watt-per-gallon light requirement is not linear.
>From Amano's Nature Aquarium World, I saw he used fewer watts per gallon for
>larger aquaria.  I don't have the book right here, but I remember that for
>large aquaria, it dropped down to under 2 W/gallon.

In my opinion, there is no hard and fast requirement on lighting.  The
wattage needed depends, among other things, on:

1. The depth of the tank.
2. Ambient lighting.
3. Duration of lighting.
4. Kind of lighting (efficiency, spectrum, etc.)
5. Type of plants you grow.
6. Fertilization regimen (CO2, trace elements, etc.)

There are people who keep plants with 1 watt/gallon of wide-spectrum lighting
(for example, Kevin Osborne, though he is not in much favor on the Internet.)

Overall, I agree with you that it is difficult to come up with a
formula for how much light is needed.  I'm not so sure that the
larger tank = less watts/gallon pattern that you noticed in Amano's
book can be generalized.

-Shaji
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shaji Bhaskar                                              bhaskar at bnr_ca
BNR, 35 Davis Dr., RTP, NC 27709, USA                      (919) 991 7125