# Two Finnex Planted Plus



## aquarium hippy (Feb 20, 2015)

Will two of these 36" Finnex Planted Plus fixtures get me into the high light range on a 46 gallon bowfront 36" wide, and 18" from the substrate?


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

For high light with LED's even using the best ones made today (none commercial) on your tank I would look at at least 70 Watts. Each Finnex plus is about 27 Watts. So two of them would give you 54 watts and three would be 81 watts. the 54 Watts combo of two 
should put you just above the moderate level while three would put you in the very high light range.

Now this is assuming they are using the state of the art newest LED's and the color balance is ideal for your plants. The color spectrum of the LED's listed in my opinion might be a little high on the red end of the spectrum but it should not be so extreme to cause any major issues. They are using 218 LED's in the fixture meaning each LED is running at only 0.12 Watts each which indicates to me these are not the super bright LED's which are usually run above 1 Watt each. 

Note on my DIY fixtures I run the LED's between 2 and 3 Watts each even though they can handle 5 Watts each for a balance between efficiency in operation and total build cost. 

If you want to go this route I would start out with two of the fixtures. However there is possibility it might not be enough light for your needs and you may later want to add a third fixture if you have room for it. Noting they are about 3" wide so with a little space between them you would need about 10" for 3 fixtures and the question is what you have on the back of the tank limiting your space?


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## aquarium hippy (Feb 20, 2015)

From what you have said I may be more inclined to go with a ray 2 to avoid a third fixture and most likely will still have enough light in the red spectrum from just the one planted plus fixture. This seems to be a popular combination and should put me where I want to .


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## TropTrea (Jan 10, 2014)

Both the planted and the Ray II are roughly 29 Watts with the only difference being the light spectrum. 
Planted version = 2 part 7,000K, and 1 part 660nm Red
The Standard Ray II = 3 Parts 7,000K
(moonlights are so dim I'm not considering them in the formula)

The combo of the two would give you 5 parts 7,000K and 1 Part 7,000K. 

Some rough calculation would put the 
Planted Plus in the 5,400K range with a red pick roughly 50% higher than the blue peak
The Ray 2 would be in the 7,000K range with almost the blue peak beig roughly triple the red.
The combination of the two would put it in the 6,300K range with only about 10% of a higher peak in the red compared to the blue.

What I found works best is is a combination that is roughly 5,300K yet does not have a strong red peak but instead a very broad red pattern. With the 7,000K LED's finex uses there is lot of blue light from them to start out with as the ratio between blue and red is what determines the K rating without looking at CRI. 

Yes you can go with the combo of the two. But you will still have roughly the same total light level. This will be in the moderate to the lower erd of the high light range. 

As I see it there are two ways of bringing up the red light level. 
1. My preferred method of using (white) LED's that are strong on the red end of the spectrum like 4,000K LED's.
2. Using a combination of several different RED LED's as LED's have a narrow spectrum and the photosynthetic red spectrum is very broad. So I'd use a combo of 6 parts 6,500K to 1 Part 660nm, to 1 part 625 nm. To give a broader red spectrum abut equal to the blue peak.


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