Ty, glad you liked the video. Yeah those Fluval 3.0's are very nice, but just cost way too much for an LED light. We have the Hygger 957 on our 75 gallon, but ended up still needing to add an additional flood light for the plants to get better growth.
Did this in a "fancy" way with 2x 20 Watts IP68 LED Floodlights over my heavily planted 110 Liter Tank. Works fantastic. But. I lost one after half a year and it just dimms now. And the other one is clearly a bit darker than before. They get really hot and after 2 months they went a lot less hot. But they clearly went darker. I added 2 extralamps for now, but i will reinstall the same style lamps, but a bit more high quality ones. I had cheap ones. But they work quite well with the 6500K. Plants grow nice. I only supplement a min dose of NPK and Iron. No Co2. But Soil. Alot of extrafiltration with a thick layer of volcanic mineral in the Back. Beneath the Soil. Tank is running 1 year now. Oh, no algea, just wanted patina neocaridina, snails, blackworms and Tubifex that live in the substrate. And a few Dario tigris will enter the Tank when the store restocks. And remember, that plants need time to get used to new Light.
Awesome, fancy is always more eye pleasing. Yeah, it is hard to find good cheap lights. When we purchase lights, especially from Amazon, we always send a message to the seller to ask about warranty and check responsiveness before we make any purchases. This check tells me the chances that a warranty might be honored are better. 6500K is a good spectrum, we have settled on the 6000K to 6500K range. We have tried others but seem to have the best luck in this range as well. Nice on the Volcanic mineral, we also use a volcanic ash/rock base in our larger tanks. The ash provides tons of minerals and the rock provides a layer for good bacteria to grow. Interesting combo on the tank, We love Neocaridina shrimp here, have 3 tanks for them, with some also housing blackworms in the substrate just like you. We plan to add in more Caridina shrimp as well, as we have tested to see if they can survive and breed in our current water parameters and have been so far successful. Congrats on the no algae, and yes I agree, plants need time to adjust to lighting. I have found that if you add too much light to quick you get tons of algae growth. Our pattern for putting lights on new tanks is by following the 3 month light strengthing rule, 4 hours 1st month, 6 hours second month, and 8 hours 3rd month, and then adjust as needed after that. Keep up the good work on your tank.
I was actually going to do this exact thing with IP68 rated ATV lights in the 6500k color flood lights. Also now that I have seen further into the video, I would suggest instead of wood for brackets, use shelf brackets and a bolt to mount them on a wall
@@NoobAquatics being the lights have a place to hang /mount them I'm thinking they can be turned once mounted, I like this Idea as well "shelf brackets" can you tell me the name of the lights you bought ?
I use a single surge protector that has multiple slots that are timed. I don't mind the multiple plugs. I just make sure that every cord has a drip loop, and the surge protector is mounted on the wall.
I WANT TO SUPPORT YOU AND YOUR CHANNEL JURNNY SO I DID A THUMB-UP ABOUT THE AFORT FOR THE VIDEO AND SUBSCRIBED TO THE CHANNEL :) THANK YOU FOR SHARING :) THANK YOU FROM ISRAEL :)
I have even cheaper lights than the Hygar lights on my tank. I use the Nicrew lights on a 90 gallon tank which is 6" deeper than the your 75 gallon. My tank is a very heavily planted tank and the plants grow like crazy. When you look at my tank it is a third as bright as your tanks with those floods on it. Fun fact, I also only run my lights at 65%, the brightness or the calvin of the lights do not constitute PAR. There is also a lot of shade in my tank, light that is to bright stresses the crap out of the fish. Light is just a small part of a balanced tank and that is the secret, a balanced tank.
We have a NiCrew C10 light on our 29 gallon and it works great as well. We use a lot of floating plants to diffuse light to reduce stress on our fish. We have the Hygger lights set at a custom brightness schedule. We do a total of 10 hours with the brightness set to 10% for 1 hour, then 30% for 2 hours, then 70% for 1 hour, then 100% for 4 hours, then it goes down to 70% for 1 hour, then 30% for 1 hour, and then the lights shut off. We tried to simulate the rise and fall of the sun's brightness over a river.
Correct, CO2 is definitely part of the photosynthesis process, and acts as kind of like a fertilizer. This use of CO2 is almost non-existent though if there is no light (ambient light does work a little). So I mainly rely on the release of CO2 from the fish and plants to fuel our tanks CO2 production. Our goal here is to house enough plants and inhabitants so that the levels are balanced and there isn't a need to inject or add concentrated CO2 tablets. But you do make a good point, that light does drive the photosynthesis process.
You can save a lot of cash by using LED floodlights. Plants can't see the brand labels on expensive stuff - they just soak up the light and grow! I know that the LED floodlights are supposed to be waterproof but I wouldn't be happy suspending any mains powered equipment over a tank using just sticky tape. Maybe you could screw them to a long strip of wood that is glued (waterproof glue) to the underside of you shelf. The safety issue is worse where I live (UK) as we have 240V mains - thet REALLY doesn't mix with water.
True, plants don't care about brand labels. But yeah, I would plan on submerging any of the LED flood lights, I only care about potential splashing on the lights. I've had a light that I tried that was just destroyed by the tank evaporation causing condensation build up on the light and it died. So hopefully being waterproof will prevent that was my intention. So far the Gorilla tape is working really well, about impossible to pull off. I had to use a razor blade to remove the light just to reposition it, lol.
I use led plant grow lights on my tanks. They're pinkish purple right now until I add more colors to balance that out. But I'm surprised I don't see any diy videos for reef tanks. They're still pushing those crazily expensive set ups guess I'll have to make one for my reef tank as well.
Absolutely, grow lights work really well also. We tried to use grow lights, and bought a few different types off of Amazon. But every time within a few months they just quit working, so that is where the flood lights came into the picture. So far we haven't had any of these flood lights fail. I use to keep saltwater tanks for about 17 years, but now strictly freshwater. But yes, I am pretty sure that with the right colors on the grow light they could work just as well for saltwater tanks. I am pretty sure that if you could find cheap alternatives for saltwater, it would get a lot of views. Reducing cost in saltwater tanks is difficult with commercially available products designed for it, so finding cheaper DIY items that work are imperative to those with smaller budgets.
@@NoobAquatics I love them for how they work in fresh water and my fish do as well but for videos the pinkish/purple light makes video look like crap. So I've decided to keep those for my indoor garden and go with spot like cfls 6500k for freshwater. I'll keep the grow lights on my reef tank because they're blues, white and reds (super bright) but I'm going to add a blue cfl just to heighten the blue more. I got these grow lights a few years ago on Walmart app and they've been sturdy even after dropping them. Picked up a set around the same time from Amazon but they were much smaller even though the glow was a bit more blueish than pink. I just had one fail. I've had so many people flip saying they will kill my coral but my coral love them. They even need to have a decent distance from the tank they're so bright. I just got into it and it's absolutely insane. Even down to the testing kits that seem to not have an all incisive kit like freshwater. It seems like some really organized scammy shit. There's no reason just to test water I need to have 200+ bucks worth of different test kits probes. Right now I'm up to my ears in 24k gold & albino koi guppy fry so I'll need to just keep my reef stable until I get the time to work on it. At least the shrimp fry are hands off!🤣
We still use grow lights in our house, but use them for the plants that are not facing a window. As you say, distance from the tank is imperative, that also goes for commercial aquarium lights. Changing how far the light is from the top of the tank is always my first go to action when lights seem to strong, or to much algae starts to grow. Saltwater is extremely fun, I just didn't have time to continue working with Marine tanks, I got a good many years in before I went to freshwater though. After the first 6 months or so on Saltwater tanks, I rarely ever checked my water parameters and they did really well for several years. So, yeah I feel a lot of those ""needed"" test kits are not really necessary as well. Lol, yeah guppies tend to even make a large tank look small. Keep up the exciting work.
If you can find an old incadescent hood for your aquarium, stick the CFL or LED home replacement bulb for whatever actual wattage the hood is rated at. Just found an old 10 gallon kit in a Petco rated for 2 x10 watt incandescents. Replace with 2 new element style 9 watt day light LEDs for 1600 combined lumens. All for 4 dollars.
Yeah, if and when the light above our 75 goes out, I plan to use something similar. All these branded aquarium lights are all just hype and completely unnecessary. Glad the shop light works for you, a great confirmation to my thoughts, thank you.
Wow, super valuable tips. Much appreciated! Very nice tanks too. One question.. how on earth did you manage to filter out all the noise? The latter part of the video has superb sound and zero noise.
Thank you, glad you like the video and our tanks. It is actually really quiet in our fish room, so there isn't really a need to filter out any noise. But for the small amount of noise that our fish room does make, my phone may be filtering it out.
It shouldn't, as these lights are IP68 rated waterproof. These are outdoor flood lights. But, with this light and even the expensive aquarium lights, I would try to avoid putting the light in the Aquarium water. And no, I use surge protectors that auto shut off similar to a GFI outlet instead.
Thanks for the heads up, I check it every week. So far it has not budged or started to peel. If it does, I will remove it and replace it with a new piece. I could screw it in, and that is probably the best way to do it, but the spacing under the shelf is a little tight. Maybe one day I'll get under there and add a screw to hold it in place.
That was originally the rule with the previous generation of bulb lighting. I believe that with planted tanks the wattage needed per gallon was even higher with those kinds of bulbs. However, with these new LED lights, this has become an idea of the past. Since moving over to LED I believe the new measurement has moved over to PAR. Basically, how much light is actually reaching the plants & substrate. Though most normal people just can't afford a PAR meter, me included, so I just do my best by visual representation of how well the light does.
Awesome, yeah flood lights are amazing, and work extremely well for planted tanks. And if you need to diffuse light, then plants are your best friend. Plants are a natural dimmer switch, lol.
Damn I wish I had of known this sooner, now I have to get me some for my 110 gal stock tank I'm redoing, FLIP A DUCK. SUPER cool video, nice info & tanks, what wattage would I need for a planted 110 gal stock tank ?
If you go 8-10+ inches above the tank you could get away with using just 3 or 4 20w spaced evenly apart, or if you want to play it on the safe side you can go 4-5 inches from the top of the tank and go with 5 10w lights. This would be for low to mid-low light requirements for the plants.
Hi new to this hobby learning a lot from your videos all your aquariums look great . I am doing a lot of research like cycling a new tank . I am getting a used 125 litre approx 30 gallons aquarium size 81x 36x 50 cm / 32 X 14 X 20 inches (L X W X D ) which will set on top of a base cabinet it will have a external canister filter that Will sit inside the base cabinet and a heater looking to keep freshwater tropical fish . Any advice on what substrate to use and seeing am new to the hobby should I get fake or live plants or any advice to be successful at this great hobby would be appreciated thanks . I live in the UK Northern Ireland.
Awesome, welcome to the hobby. This is both a relaxing and entertaining hobby, as fish all have unique personalities. I hope you get the same joy out of it as we do as a family. Some advice, to eliminate any twisting on the tank, we normally cut out some 1/4" in. Yoga mat to a little bigger than the base size of the aquarium. This is what tank sits on, and helps to prevent any cracks and/or breaking from happening. For substrate, this will depend mainly on the fish and size, but here we normally go with sand and a small pebble. Because we highly recommend plants for any tank that they are possible, we almost always use 1/3 planted substrate, and 2/3 of sand on top. So in a 30 gallon tank, we would put in about 20 pounds of an inert planted substrate as a base layer, this allows for the roots to be able to freely move about the bottom of the tank, and then we would add about 40-50 pounds of sand on top. We do it this way as planted substrate can be quite costly if you fill the entire tank with it. Having the planted substrate allows for good steady growth until your fish can start to fertilize the substrate for you. Also, we found that the deeper the substrate, the better our tanks have performed. For plants, this really depends on the fish, as most fish readily accept plants, some will readily eat the plants as well. So, I would say determine what type of fish you are going to keep in your aquarium and then research if plants would work, if they do, then I would start with low light plants in 2 categories, substrate plants like Water Wisteria and Bacopa, and water column feeders like Anubias and Java Ferns, assuming you can easily get ahold of these types. You can also add a house plant like the Pothos we have on top of several of our aquariums, just make sure to wash the roots on the plant real well before placing the roots in the aquarium, I'll be adding a video on this topic later. One last pieces of advice, when adding the aquarium light, plants grow best in the 5000K+ spectrum range, so a single 20W LED flood light, like the white ones in the video, placed about 8-10 inches from the top of the aquarium would be enough to grow plants. In the beginning I would start with 4-6 hours of steady full light, then after about 4-6 weeks increase the light amount to about 6-8 hours. This reduces the chance of rapid algae growth when starting an aquarium. Other than this advice, have fun.
@@NoobAquatics hi thanks for the advice if you don't mind what inert planted base layer would I use as I don't understand what it means . I will look up the live plants you said about as I have not down much research on plants only on the fish . So for fish looking for a school of 8 or 10 Harlequin rasboras ; 7 panda copycats ; a pair of honey gourmies 1m/f . Does that stocking level look ok if I can get the live plants going .
An inert substrate is one that doesn't alter the water chemistry, mainly the pH. Some substrates will lower the pH, and some will increase the pH, and there are also some substrates that will have Ammonia/Nitrogen that release into the water, which can be toxic to the fish if not managed correctly. These types of substrates are mainly for certain types of species like Caridina shrimp or African Cichlids. A few types of inert planted substrates that you could look for are CaribSea Eco-Complete, ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia Light, or Flourite Black by SeaChem. For the planted substrate, make sure to follow the directions on the bag completely. You could also just use small river pea pebbles as a base layers with the sand on top, and add in root tabs. These root tabs provide your plants with about 2-4 months of food, and you would add them every 3 months until the tank has been set up for about a year, and then after that only add them when necessary. Yes, that stocking level looks good for a 30 gallon tank. I would start out slowly when adding in the fish. So when you start the tank (depending on how you cycle it), you can start by adding in the Rasboras first, then wait about a month and then add in the Cory's, and finally another month later the pair of Honey Gourami's. This will allow the tank to build up the right amount of bacteria at a stead pace. The Cory's will need a substrate that is smooth and small so that their barbs on their face don't get worn down/broken from rooting in the substrate. By adding the sand to the top of the planted substrate/pebbles, this ensures that the substrate is safe for the Cory's as well.
A 50w LED flood light could work, but it would be better to split it into 2 to 3 lights instead. So two or three 20w LED flood lights allow for a more even light spread across the tank. You can always try to start with a 50w light about 8-10 inches above the tank and adjust the height of the light and length that it stays on as needed. You will know after about a month if it is too much, you would start to see lots of algae growth if it is.
I use a single 20w flood light on the right side of my 75G and it's spread reaches the bottom of the tank better than the Hygger. I can only keep it on for 4 extra hours a day though as I don't want to introduce any extra algae growth.
Excellent, ty for the sub. Yes, the lumens of the 20W flood lights are 1500 lumens each light, but I did notice that some seem even brighter than that out of the 4 pack we bought.
I’ve been doing a bit of research on new lighting as I’m refurbing an old half moon 190L tank with hood & built in Fluro tubes. I’ve read that plants need around 5500Lumens. Is that right?❤️🇦🇺
@@MissChelle Lumens don't really matter as much as the spectrum and PAR. Basically, it's how much light is actually getting to the plants and/or bottom of the tank. If you put up your lights and it looks like the Sun is sitting on your substrate, then the light might be too bright, if it is really shady at the bottom, then it may be too weak. But, lumens do have a factor in how bright the light is, and that can be used as an indicator at least. The lumens on our lights are all rated differently, our 20 longs have 1500 lumen lights, the 75 has 2500 lumens, and the 40 has 2200 lumens. So if you have 5500 lumens, assuming it is bright and in the 5000 Kelvin to 6500 Kelvin spectrum, then you may only need to adjust the distance the light is from the top of the tank to make it work.
Yeah, buying lights can be frustrating at times. Flood lights and aquarium lights use a reflector shield that helps to send more light forward. This allows for the light to be brighter, I would say that if the 5500 lumen light you have reaches the plants well enough then it will be good to use. The only way to determine if it will work is to use it and see how it works. Any light is better than no light for plants. Even grow lights work really well for aquariums, and the lumens on those lights are minimal.
Excellent, ty for the sub. Thanks for the tip as well, we did look at our local Lowe's and Home Depot for grow lights, but for the cheaper range they only sell the bulbs. The clip-ons and lamps were just a little more than we wanted to spend. We could have ordered the lights that were cheaper, but ended up just going with the MiWat flood lights from Amazon.
btw big fishtank fan and your tanks look dope man
Awesome, thanks for the compliment.
great video After chasing fluval 3.0's and hygger 957s and ect.
Ty, glad you liked the video. Yeah those Fluval 3.0's are very nice, but just cost way too much for an LED light. We have the Hygger 957 on our 75 gallon, but ended up still needing to add an additional flood light for the plants to get better growth.
Did this in a "fancy" way with 2x 20 Watts IP68 LED Floodlights over my heavily planted 110 Liter Tank. Works fantastic. But. I lost one after half a year and it just dimms now. And the other one is clearly a bit darker than before. They get really hot and after 2 months they went a lot less hot. But they clearly went darker. I added 2 extralamps for now, but i will reinstall the same style lamps, but a bit more high quality ones. I had cheap ones. But they work quite well with the 6500K. Plants grow nice. I only supplement a min dose of NPK and Iron. No Co2. But Soil. Alot of extrafiltration with a thick layer of volcanic mineral in the Back. Beneath the Soil.
Tank is running 1 year now.
Oh, no algea, just wanted patina neocaridina, snails, blackworms and Tubifex that live in the substrate. And a few Dario tigris will enter the Tank when the store restocks.
And remember, that plants need time to get used to new Light.
Awesome, fancy is always more eye pleasing. Yeah, it is hard to find good cheap lights. When we purchase lights, especially from Amazon, we always send a message to the seller to ask about warranty and check responsiveness before we make any purchases. This check tells me the chances that a warranty might be honored are better.
6500K is a good spectrum, we have settled on the 6000K to 6500K range. We have tried others but seem to have the best luck in this range as well. Nice on the Volcanic mineral, we also use a volcanic ash/rock base in our larger tanks. The ash provides tons of minerals and the rock provides a layer for good bacteria to grow.
Interesting combo on the tank, We love Neocaridina shrimp here, have 3 tanks for them, with some also housing blackworms in the substrate just like you. We plan to add in more Caridina shrimp as well, as we have tested to see if they can survive and breed in our current water parameters and have been so far successful.
Congrats on the no algae, and yes I agree, plants need time to adjust to lighting. I have found that if you add too much light to quick you get tons of algae growth. Our pattern for putting lights on new tanks is by following the 3 month light strengthing rule, 4 hours 1st month, 6 hours second month, and 8 hours 3rd month, and then adjust as needed after that. Keep up the good work on your tank.
I was actually going to do this exact thing with IP68 rated ATV lights in the 6500k color flood lights. Also now that I have seen further into the video, I would suggest instead of wood for brackets, use shelf brackets and a bolt to mount them on a wall
That would definitely work, good suggestion.
@@NoobAquatics being the lights have a place to hang /mount them
I'm thinking they can be turned once mounted, I like this Idea as well
"shelf brackets" can you tell me the name of the lights you bought ?
They were the MiWat LED Flood Lights with the plug already attached.
how did it turn out? did your plants grow under this light?
Make sure you put some kind of permanent tagging system on those lights and a date. We need an annual update on these for the next 17 years.
Lol, let's hope they actually last that long. I will use this video as a reference point.
@@NoobAquatics Isn't that the reason why UA-cam videos are Created? 😂 Keep em coming & I'll be watching. 🥤🍿
Kind of sounds like this guy is trying to be an asshole but not comfortable enough to go all the way
Nah, I understood what they meant. I guess, depending on how you read what they wrote it could go either way.
I like the idea, but not liking the idea of the need for multiple plugs for longer/larger tanks. How do you plan on organizing that for your 75?
I use a single surge protector that has multiple slots that are timed. I don't mind the multiple plugs. I just make sure that every cord has a drip loop, and the surge protector is mounted on the wall.
I WANT TO SUPPORT YOU AND YOUR CHANNEL JURNNY SO I DID A THUMB-UP ABOUT THE AFORT FOR THE VIDEO AND SUBSCRIBED TO THE CHANNEL :)
THANK YOU FOR SHARING :)
THANK YOU FROM ISRAEL :)
Excellent, ty for the sub and like, we will have many more videos coming soon.
I have even cheaper lights than the Hygar lights on my tank. I use the Nicrew lights on a 90 gallon tank which is 6" deeper than the your 75 gallon. My tank is a very heavily planted tank and the plants grow like crazy. When you look at my tank it is a third as bright as your tanks with those floods on it. Fun fact, I also only run my lights at 65%, the brightness or the calvin of the lights do not constitute PAR. There is also a lot of shade in my tank, light that is to bright stresses the crap out of the fish. Light is just a small part of a balanced tank and that is the secret, a balanced tank.
We have a NiCrew C10 light on our 29 gallon and it works great as well. We use a lot of floating plants to diffuse light to reduce stress on our fish. We have the Hygger lights set at a custom brightness schedule. We do a total of 10 hours with the brightness set to 10% for 1 hour, then 30% for 2 hours, then 70% for 1 hour, then 100% for 4 hours, then it goes down to 70% for 1 hour, then 30% for 1 hour, and then the lights shut off. We tried to simulate the rise and fall of the sun's brightness over a river.
this video got suggested on feed
Nice
Just remember co2 grows plants the light just drives it.
Correct, CO2 is definitely part of the photosynthesis process, and acts as kind of like a fertilizer. This use of CO2 is almost non-existent though if there is no light (ambient light does work a little). So I mainly rely on the release of CO2 from the fish and plants to fuel our tanks CO2 production. Our goal here is to house enough plants and inhabitants so that the levels are balanced and there isn't a need to inject or add concentrated CO2 tablets. But you do make a good point, that light does drive the photosynthesis process.
You can save a lot of cash by using LED floodlights. Plants can't see the brand labels on expensive stuff - they just soak up the light and grow!
I know that the LED floodlights are supposed to be waterproof but I wouldn't be happy suspending any mains powered equipment over a tank using just sticky tape. Maybe you could screw them to a long strip of wood that is glued (waterproof glue) to the underside of you shelf.
The safety issue is worse where I live (UK) as we have 240V mains - thet REALLY doesn't mix with water.
True, plants don't care about brand labels. But yeah, I would plan on submerging any of the LED flood lights, I only care about potential splashing on the lights. I've had a light that I tried that was just destroyed by the tank evaporation causing condensation build up on the light and it died. So hopefully being waterproof will prevent that was my intention. So far the Gorilla tape is working really well, about impossible to pull off. I had to use a razor blade to remove the light just to reposition it, lol.
Love your content, i'm a fan of flood lights
Excellent, ty. Yeah we are hooked now and plan to use them going forward. No more expensive aquarium lights for us.
hey man keep up the work with the videos
Will do, more vids coming.
I use led plant grow lights on my tanks. They're pinkish purple right now until I add more colors to balance that out. But I'm surprised I don't see any diy videos for reef tanks. They're still pushing those crazily expensive set ups guess I'll have to make one for my reef tank as well.
Absolutely, grow lights work really well also. We tried to use grow lights, and bought a few different types off of Amazon. But every time within a few months they just quit working, so that is where the flood lights came into the picture. So far we haven't had any of these flood lights fail.
I use to keep saltwater tanks for about 17 years, but now strictly freshwater. But yes, I am pretty sure that with the right colors on the grow light they could work just as well for saltwater tanks. I am pretty sure that if you could find cheap alternatives for saltwater, it would get a lot of views. Reducing cost in saltwater tanks is difficult with commercially available products designed for it, so finding cheaper DIY items that work are imperative to those with smaller budgets.
@@NoobAquatics I love them for how they work in fresh water and my fish do as well but for videos the pinkish/purple light makes video look like crap. So I've decided to keep those for my indoor garden and go with spot like cfls 6500k for freshwater. I'll keep the grow lights on my reef tank because they're blues, white and reds (super bright) but I'm going to add a blue cfl just to heighten the blue more.
I got these grow lights a few years ago on Walmart app and they've been sturdy even after dropping them. Picked up a set around the same time from Amazon but they were much smaller even though the glow was a bit more blueish than pink. I just had one fail.
I've had so many people flip saying they will kill my coral but my coral love them. They even need to have a decent distance from the tank they're so bright.
I just got into it and it's absolutely insane. Even down to the testing kits that seem to not have an all incisive kit like freshwater. It seems like some really organized scammy shit. There's no reason just to test water I need to have 200+ bucks worth of different test kits probes.
Right now I'm up to my ears in 24k gold & albino koi guppy fry so I'll need to just keep my reef stable until I get the time to work on it. At least the shrimp fry are hands off!🤣
We still use grow lights in our house, but use them for the plants that are not facing a window. As you say, distance from the tank is imperative, that also goes for commercial aquarium lights. Changing how far the light is from the top of the tank is always my first go to action when lights seem to strong, or to much algae starts to grow.
Saltwater is extremely fun, I just didn't have time to continue working with Marine tanks, I got a good many years in before I went to freshwater though. After the first 6 months or so on Saltwater tanks, I rarely ever checked my water parameters and they did really well for several years. So, yeah I feel a lot of those ""needed"" test kits are not really necessary as well.
Lol, yeah guppies tend to even make a large tank look small. Keep up the exciting work.
If you can find an old incadescent hood for your aquarium, stick the CFL or LED home replacement bulb for whatever actual wattage the hood is rated at. Just found an old 10 gallon kit in a Petco rated for 2 x10 watt incandescents. Replace with 2 new element style 9 watt day light LEDs for 1600 combined lumens. All for 4 dollars.
Nice, I'll have to look into that.
I use a 4ft led shop light from Walmart. It grows anything in my 75 gallon.
Yeah, if and when the light above our 75 goes out, I plan to use something similar. All these branded aquarium lights are all just hype and completely unnecessary. Glad the shop light works for you, a great confirmation to my thoughts, thank you.
Wow, super valuable tips. Much appreciated! Very nice tanks too. One question.. how on earth did you manage to filter out all the noise? The latter part of the video has superb sound and zero noise.
Thank you, glad you like the video and our tanks. It is actually really quiet in our fish room, so there isn't really a need to filter out any noise. But for the small amount of noise that our fish room does make, my phone may be filtering it out.
If you drop a light into the tank will the fish get fried? Do you use GFI for all your aquarium power?
It shouldn't, as these lights are IP68 rated waterproof. These are outdoor flood lights. But, with this light and even the expensive aquarium lights, I would try to avoid putting the light in the Aquarium water. And no, I use surge protectors that auto shut off similar to a GFI outlet instead.
Just a heads up... Keep an eye on that tape. Especially with the heat!
Thanks for the heads up, I check it every week. So far it has not budged or started to peel. If it does, I will remove it and replace it with a new piece. I could screw it in, and that is probably the best way to do it, but the spacing under the shelf is a little tight. Maybe one day I'll get under there and add a screw to hold it in place.
Is it ideal to have a 1 Watt per gallon or is this a myth? 🤔
That was originally the rule with the previous generation of bulb lighting. I believe that with planted tanks the wattage needed per gallon was even higher with those kinds of bulbs. However, with these new LED lights, this has become an idea of the past. Since moving over to LED I believe the new measurement has moved over to PAR. Basically, how much light is actually reaching the plants & substrate. Though most normal people just can't afford a PAR meter, me included, so I just do my best by visual representation of how well the light does.
ive been doing this for years!!
Awesome, yeah flood lights are amazing, and work extremely well for planted tanks. And if you need to diffuse light, then plants are your best friend. Plants are a natural dimmer switch, lol.
You lost me at the burp
Lol
Damn I wish I had of known this sooner, now I have to get
me some for my 110 gal stock tank I'm redoing, FLIP A DUCK.
SUPER cool video, nice info & tanks, what wattage would I
need for a planted 110 gal stock tank ?
If you go 8-10+ inches above the tank you could get away with using just 3 or 4 20w spaced evenly apart, or if you want to play it on the safe side you can go 4-5 inches from the top of the tank and go with 5 10w lights. This would be for low to mid-low light requirements for the plants.
Just found them & bought 4 of them 👍 thanks
Awesome :o)
Hi new to this hobby learning a lot from your videos all your aquariums look great . I am doing a lot of research like cycling a new tank . I am getting a used 125 litre approx 30 gallons aquarium size 81x
36x 50 cm / 32 X 14 X
20 inches (L X W X D ) which will set on top of a base cabinet it will have a external canister filter that Will sit inside the base cabinet and a heater looking to keep freshwater tropical fish . Any advice on what substrate to use and seeing am new to the hobby should I get fake or live plants or any advice to be successful at this great hobby would be appreciated thanks . I live in the UK Northern Ireland.
Awesome, welcome to the hobby. This is both a relaxing and entertaining hobby, as fish all have unique personalities. I hope you get the same joy out of it as we do as a family. Some advice, to eliminate any twisting on the tank, we normally cut out some 1/4" in. Yoga mat to a little bigger than the base size of the aquarium. This is what tank sits on, and helps to prevent any cracks and/or breaking from happening. For substrate, this will depend mainly on the fish and size, but here we normally go with sand and a small pebble. Because we highly recommend plants for any tank that they are possible, we almost always use 1/3 planted substrate, and 2/3 of sand on top. So in a 30 gallon tank, we would put in about 20 pounds of an inert planted substrate as a base layer, this allows for the roots to be able to freely move about the bottom of the tank, and then we would add about 40-50 pounds of sand on top. We do it this way as planted substrate can be quite costly if you fill the entire tank with it. Having the planted substrate allows for good steady growth until your fish can start to fertilize the substrate for you. Also, we found that the deeper the substrate, the better our tanks have performed. For plants, this really depends on the fish, as most fish readily accept plants, some will readily eat the plants as well. So, I would say determine what type of fish you are going to keep in your aquarium and then research if plants would work, if they do, then I would start with low light plants in 2 categories, substrate plants like Water Wisteria and Bacopa, and water column feeders like Anubias and Java Ferns, assuming you can easily get ahold of these types. You can also add a house plant like the Pothos we have on top of several of our aquariums, just make sure to wash the roots on the plant real well before placing the roots in the aquarium, I'll be adding a video on this topic later. One last pieces of advice, when adding the aquarium light, plants grow best in the 5000K+ spectrum range, so a single 20W LED flood light, like the white ones in the video, placed about 8-10 inches from the top of the aquarium would be enough to grow plants. In the beginning I would start with 4-6 hours of steady full light, then after about 4-6 weeks increase the light amount to about 6-8 hours. This reduces the chance of rapid algae growth when starting an aquarium. Other than this advice, have fun.
@@NoobAquatics hi thanks for the advice if you don't mind what inert planted base layer would I use as I don't understand what it means . I will look up the live plants you said about as I have not down much research on plants only on the fish . So for fish looking for a school of 8 or 10 Harlequin rasboras ; 7 panda copycats ; a pair of honey gourmies 1m/f . Does that stocking level look ok if I can get the live plants going .
An inert substrate is one that doesn't alter the water chemistry, mainly the pH. Some substrates will lower the pH, and some will increase the pH, and there are also some substrates that will have Ammonia/Nitrogen that release into the water, which can be toxic to the fish if not managed correctly. These types of substrates are mainly for certain types of species like Caridina shrimp or African Cichlids. A few types of inert planted substrates that you could look for are CaribSea Eco-Complete, ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia Light, or Flourite Black by SeaChem. For the planted substrate, make sure to follow the directions on the bag completely.
You could also just use small river pea pebbles as a base layers with the sand on top, and add in root tabs. These root tabs provide your plants with about 2-4 months of food, and you would add them every 3 months until the tank has been set up for about a year, and then after that only add them when necessary.
Yes, that stocking level looks good for a 30 gallon tank. I would start out slowly when adding in the fish. So when you start the tank (depending on how you cycle it), you can start by adding in the Rasboras first, then wait about a month and then add in the Cory's, and finally another month later the pair of Honey Gourami's. This will allow the tank to build up the right amount of bacteria at a stead pace. The Cory's will need a substrate that is smooth and small so that their barbs on their face don't get worn down/broken from rooting in the substrate. By adding the sand to the top of the planted substrate/pebbles, this ensures that the substrate is safe for the Cory's as well.
So do you think a 50 watt would work for a 55 gal tank since they are 24 inches deep?
A 50w LED flood light could work, but it would be better to split it into 2 to 3 lights instead. So two or three 20w LED flood lights allow for a more even light spread across the tank.
You can always try to start with a 50w light about 8-10 inches above the tank and adjust the height of the light and length that it stays on as needed. You will know after about a month if it is too much, you would start to see lots of algae growth if it is.
@@NoobAquatics I was thinking the extra depth of a 55 gal tank might need stronger light to reach the bottom. But I can try the 20 watt flood lights.
I use a single 20w flood light on the right side of my 75G and it's spread reaches the bottom of the tank better than the Hygger. I can only keep it on for 4 extra hours a day though as I don't want to introduce any extra algae growth.
Hi, new sub from Australia. Do you know what the lumens are for the 20w? Great vid 🇦🇺❤️
Excellent, ty for the sub. Yes, the lumens of the 20W flood lights are 1500 lumens each light, but I did notice that some seem even brighter than that out of the 4 pack we bought.
I’ve been doing a bit of research on new lighting as I’m refurbing an old half moon 190L tank with hood & built in Fluro tubes. I’ve read that plants need around 5500Lumens. Is that right?❤️🇦🇺
@@MissChelle Lumens don't really matter as much as the spectrum and PAR. Basically, it's how much light is actually getting to the plants and/or bottom of the tank. If you put up your lights and it looks like the Sun is sitting on your substrate, then the light might be too bright, if it is really shady at the bottom, then it may be too weak. But, lumens do have a factor in how bright the light is, and that can be used as an indicator at least. The lumens on our lights are all rated differently, our 20 longs have 1500 lumen lights, the 75 has 2500 lumens, and the 40 has 2200 lumens. So if you have 5500 lumens, assuming it is bright and in the 5000 Kelvin to 6500 Kelvin spectrum, then you may only need to adjust the distance the light is from the top of the tank to make it work.
@@NoobAquatics aaarrgghhhhh 🤯
Yeah, buying lights can be frustrating at times. Flood lights and aquarium lights use a reflector shield that helps to send more light forward. This allows for the light to be brighter, I would say that if the 5500 lumen light you have reaches the plants well enough then it will be good to use. The only way to determine if it will work is to use it and see how it works. Any light is better than no light for plants. Even grow lights work really well for aquariums, and the lumens on those lights are minimal.
hey Brother , Lowes and home depot both sell led grow lights , they're pretty inexpensive and grow aquarium plants really well .
I subbed
Excellent, ty for the sub. Thanks for the tip as well, we did look at our local Lowe's and Home Depot for grow lights, but for the cheaper range they only sell the bulbs. The clip-ons and lamps were just a little more than we wanted to spend. We could have ordered the lights that were cheaper, but ended up just going with the MiWat flood lights from Amazon.
@@NoobAquatics not to mention that a plant light has to be the worst color spectrum for any aquarium