lighting

[ijimenez]

Would a regular compact florescent light bulb work for a10 gallon planted shrimp tank

[morpheus]

i started a 10g planted shrimp tank maybe 6 months ago...in short, yes CFL bulbs will work, but you need to look at the spectrum the bulb produces. the standard bulbs you put into lamps are around 2700k spectrum and wont support plants very well.

my lighting has two sockets and i use daylight CFLs that produce light in the 6000k spectrum. that is good enough for low light plants.

i also dose the tank with Flourish Excel and use root tabs too for added nutrients. i use gravel as my substrate, but a plant specific substrate would be better if you are starting from scratch and produce better color

[BrAin]

Ive got one daylight bulb over each ten gallon. Provides enough light to sustain plants but slower growth. Also no algae issues. Dosing and double bulbs would probably get me the extra plants to sell but all i was worries about was the shrimp.

[morpheus]

i tried to breed RCS in the tank and it never took off. not sure if it was the dosing or not. they just eventually all died off.

last week i restocked it with pea puffers and a few amano shrimp for cleanup detail. lost two of the shrimp, but saw at least one has molted successfully since i bought them

[ijimenez]

Thank you guys ya when i was look in to it i was the 6000k a lot but what is that what does the k stand for

[LooksLater]

K stands for kelvins, the color temp or spectrum of light.

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[Roshan8768]

It has to do with the spectrum of the lighting... The lower numbers will appear more yellow to the human eye while the higher values are a more crisp white/blue. Plants grow best between 5000-10000k just depends on what looks good to you. Anything below 5000k will probably grow more algae than plants

[ijimenez]

Ok Thanks