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> Here's my problem: The anacharis is consistently developing little brown spots
> which then grow and rot away, breaking the plant off at the stem.
[snip]
> I don't have any testing kits, but the water here is fairly hard and notorious
> for sulphur. The lighting I have is a 20-watt bulb which I leave on generally
> 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Temperature ranges from about 74-78 F under normal
> circumstances. I recently added some Black Water Extract from Tetra and some
> Tetra FloraPride (about a week ago) to negligible effect. Here are my thoughts
> about what may be going on:
> 1 - Not enough light.
Nathan, I don't know about the sulpher, but the rule of thumb for lighting
is 2-4 watts/gal, meaning you would probably want between 60 and 120 watts
on your 29 gal tank. Anacharis likes medium to strong light, so I'd try for
85 watts or more.
> If I needed to add light, how would I go about doing so?
You can either retrofit the hood with more powerful lamps like compact
flourescents, or build a DIY hood that is wider and can hold more T12 or T8
flourescents. The retrofit kits can be found at AH Supply, among other
places: http://www.ahsupply.com/index.html
I built my own DIY hood for my 45 gal and fitted it with 4 T8 bulbs. These
are rated 25 watts, but with the ballast I use the T8s put out about 20%
more light per watt than the T12 lamps do, so I get the equivalent of about
125 watts, or just under 3 watts/gal. If you build your own hood, you could
use 4 F18-T8 bulbs and with the right ballast have the equivalent of about
90 watts of light. I believe this would probably be ample for your
anacharis.
I don't have anacharis, but I grow Lugwidia, Echinodoris, and Cabomba
species without problems. If you'd like to see my design, email me offlist
and I'll send you a simple diagram.
> Is there any resource on the net or from a book that gives general W/gal
> lighting requirements for plants?
Tons. Start at Erik Olsen's site: http://www.thekrib.com/
Dan Dixon