# FugeRay Planted+ on Fluval Spec V



## Lurkermom (Feb 11, 2014)

I've been looking around to upgrade the stock light on my Spec V.

there's a few that seems interesting to me, but I'm really curious about the Finnex FugeRay Planted+ (12inches) especially for the price.

We are also thinking about building our own setup at worse, but I'd rather if I can find one already made (less of an hassle)

Heres the setup so far :

Fluval Spec V
Carribsea : Instant Aquarium black sand

Marimo Moss ball
Unknown grassy plant... It looks like Acorus, but I wouldn't know and I'm really not sure that's it (apparently the guy at the LFS didn't know either!)

A HM Betta (I did tweak the filtration for him, very little flow...)
Two Ghost Shrimps (they were my test to see if the betta could live with tank mates!)
3 Cherry Shrimps (looks like he was able to cohabit perfectly!)

The water is around 22celcious, but I'm waiting for my new heater to arrive in the mail soon (Hydor submersible 25w) So it should go up around 24-25 

There's no CO2 setup, I'm trying to avoid it, but I might give in eventually [smilie=h:

So, does anyone know anything about the finnex leds? any other options ?


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## Zapins (Jul 28, 2004)

While many LED light systems seem to need some work and haven't been tried out by many people in the hobby, the FugeRay seems to do quite well. I've seen several people who have used it and were able to grow plants quite well so I think that it is a good LED system. T5 high output bulbs are also a good option, take a look on ebay.com at the hydroponics T5 HO lights, there are some really sleek, cheap, good quality fixtures on there (I use one of these on my tanks and love it).

If you can post some pictures of the grassy plant we can almost certainly ID it for you (start a new ID thread though since that seems to attract the taxonomy-nuts on this site).

I highly recommend CO2, it makes everything so, SO much easier. Plants will grow very well and healthily when you have a proper CO2 system, but you can certainly get by without one - especially if you are just trying to get your toes wet and see what planted tanks are all about.

I'd recommend looking into the soil based approach (basically using garden soil with an inert pool filter or fluorite substrate cap). It is almost fool proof and will grow virtually any plant you have provided you have the right amount of light. Using soil you can have low-high light and grow plants perfectly. The low light version of soil tanks is called "El natural" and you can read more about how to do it in the forum:http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/el-natural/

Also, you should look at the PlantFinder (top left of this page), it shows pictures of almost all the available aquarium plants in the hobby and gives a lot of detailed info about them. The Fertilator (top left as well) will help you dose fertilizers should you decide you don't want to use soil but rather dose the water column with liquid or dry fertilizer.


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