# Lighting for a 90 gall. NEED HELP!!



## SankysYuck (Aug 29, 2006)

Hi hows it goin. I'm currently setting up a 90 gallon planted tank for my discus which I currently have in a 45. 

I think I'm doing everything right so far, I recently have bought a CO2 kit, and am planning on using Flourite for my substrate. I'm going to use an Eheim canister as my filtration, I beleive that isn't a bad choice of filtration for a planted tank considering it doesnt create as much water movement in the return, so that won't remove a lot of CO2 from the water, plus it won't add a lot of oxygen to the water like a Wet/Dry filter or Hang On Filter would... I may be wrong but fell free to let me know... 

Anyways my main concern now is lighting, I'm going to be using a Wood Canopy, so I was planning on using a retrofit kit. A good friend of mine has a brand new T5 kit for sale, it uses 4 54Watt bulbs, which I was thinking I would use 6700K on. But is this enough light? I was reading that ideally you should have 4 watts per gallon and that kind of lighting would only equal around 2.4 so I needed some other opinions.

I'm actually the manager of the fish room at a local pet store in my city, I have a lot of experience but only somewhat with plants, I've kept discus since I was 12, I have 5 that are almost 7 years old.
Ok well any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks everybody!


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## SankysYuck (Aug 29, 2006)

BTW I am also going to be using a 9 Watt UV sterilizer on this tank.


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

SankysYuck said:


> Anyways my main concern now is lighting, I'm going to be using a Wood Canopy, so I was planning on using a retrofit kit. A good friend of mine has a brand new T5 kit for sale, it uses 4 54Watt bulbs, which I was thinking I would use 6700K on. But is this enough light? I was reading that ideally you should have 4 watts per gallon and that kind of lighting would only equal around 2.4 so I needed some other opinions.


The Eheim is the way to go. You won't regret it and it will last forever, but you probably already knew that.

That Tek kit you described is exactly what I would recommend. 4 wpg is considered very high lighting; especially on a 90 gallon. The wpg rule of around 3 breaks down as the tank gets larger and larger and vice versa. I have used the Tek 4x54 watt fixture on my 75 gallon tank and it is very bright and offers plenty of light to grow any plant you could want.

One thing to mention is that with any higher lighting tank pressurized CO2 is a must. You could do DIY CO2, but with a tank that size it's not very economical anymore.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

The lighting choice seems ok, but with that much light you need a good fertilizing program that provides adequate nitrate, phosphate, potassium and traces. And, DIY CO2 will not be consistent enough, even if you use several bottles, as you would need to. A pressurized CO2 system would be essential. Then, you would just have to make sure the amount of CO2 in the water is high enough and stays there day after day, and algae should not become a problem.


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## SankysYuck (Aug 29, 2006)

Well I think I'm all set as for as pressurized CO2, I bought the $379 Automatic CO2 system from fosterandsmith, it includes a PH controller and everything. And Like I said im using Flourite as my substrate. I am going to add some extra liquids so I get my potassium levels and such where I want them.

If theres anything else you guys would reccomemd me doing just let me kno. So far I think I'm on the right track! Thanks everybody


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

Don't forget, you're gonna need to purchase a CO2 tank. I don't believe one comes with the fosterandsmith kit. -- could be wrong though!

I got a 90 gallon tank too. I used soilmaster select to set it up. You can see it in my sig.

In regards to the bulb choice, I originally had 4 65 watt 6700k bulbs, but you can see in my journal that I changed 2 of them out for the 9325k and am much happier.


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

Oh yeah! Good luck! It's a fun hobby!

I'd check out about the sterilizer. If you plan on using it with the eheim, the flowrate might be too high for the sterilizer to be effective. Some people argue that the sterilizer also gets rid of nutrients. You certainly won't have to run it 24/7 though.


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## SankysYuck (Aug 29, 2006)

Yes I'm aware that the kit doesn't come with the CO2 bottle, but thanks anyways. I'm also aware that that flow rate is too much for a UV (Needs 100-200 gph) But I plan to T it off and add a ball valve so.... I'm wayy ahead of you!! lol... Ok thanks.


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## AlexTal (Mar 23, 2006)

Sounds good!

I think some of those eheims have a way to limit the flow rate ... that combined with an inline reactor might bring the flow rate low enough to use the sterilizer. If you got a solution I wouldn't worry about it though. Good luck! Sounds like you've got it mostly figured out.


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