# 1x36 or 2x36 AH on a 10g



## Gomer (Feb 2, 2004)

the 10g is an interesting tank to light.

the 1x36 AH kit is the right amount of light, but coverage front to back is lacking. ..especially if you have a rear wall of tall stems. You could raise the lights, but then your output goes down considerably by the time you have really nice front to back coverage allowing for tall rear plants


the 2x36 kit has perfect coverage, but then you are in the uber high light catagory. Shorter photoperiods will help here, but nutrient uptake will still be considerable as will growthrate.


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## dennis (Mar 1, 2004)

Gomer,

I feel you pain with this. I wish one of two things. 18" t5 bulbs with really nice spectrum, color and CRI. Or, something I have been thinking about for a couple of days....

What if you had a reflector that was like this. Sorry for the crappy paint drawing










Obviuosly, you would have to figure out the angles and bends so that you go t good coverage. My thought though, is that with a reflector that extends down through end below the middle of the bulb, and wil longer, correctly angled bends at the top of the reflector, you could pull the light more away from the middle and out tho the edges of the aquarium.

Ona side note, what I have been doing in my 10, is use one 36 watt almost in the front and one t8 15watt in the back. I dont use the back t8 very often though, lately, as my plants in the back get enough light without it. I dont have any reflectors and th einside is not even painted white. Th efront of my DIY hood does angle back some though. The back of the aqaurium, about the upper 1/3 at the very back, is very poorly light, but its ok for my aquascape, at the moment HTH


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## JLudwig (Feb 16, 2004)

Gomer said:


> the 1x36 AH kit is the right amount of light, but coverage front to back is lacking. ..especially if you have a rear wall of tall stems. You could raise the lights, but then your output goes down considerably by the time you have really nice front to back coverage allowing for tall rear plants


Suck it up and use the 2x36  Just kidding... I'm using the 2x36 on a 15, its a little much but I have it under control. Growth rates are actually a lot less than you would think, but I get weird stuff like stunted Blyxa, etc...

Anyhow the trick on smaller tanks is to go pendant, if you can get the 1x36 off the tank ~6"-10" or so the coverage problems go away..

Jeff


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## IUnknown (Feb 24, 2004)

You can play around the ballast wiring to run both 36W bulbs at 15W each,


> Buy the 2x55w kit.
> Buy two 55w bulbs.
> The wiring kit will tell you to put two outputs from the Workhorse 5
> into each 55w bulb. Hook up just one. That's going to be roughly the same
> ...





> Wow, I can't believe I didn't remember that. Yes, I must add never buy the 1x55w kit when you can buy the 2x55w kit. This I regret when I bought my 1x55W kit. The workhorse 5 ballast comes with the dual kit and has MUCH more options then the workhorse 3 that comes in the single kit.
> 
> You're not under driving or over driving 2 36w bulbs with 2x55w kit. The 2x55 and 2x36 kits are exactly the same, just the reflectors are different. Both use the Fulham workhorse 5 ballast. These things can do it all - 2 13w, 2 18w, 1 36w, 1 55w, 2 55w, 2 36w, 96w...those are just a few CF combos. Even can run normal output fluorescents and HO tubes.
> 
> Go to www.fulham.com, and select the proper fields for your setup. It will give you wiring diagrams. The WK 5 can technically run bulbs from as little as 5w to 110w.


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