# 10 gallon tank lighting for plants



## krazeazn (Aug 27, 2013)

Hi everyone! I've been reading your posts on natural planted tank. My history with aquariums were when I was a kid and my dad had arowanas to gold fishes, kois and Oscars. I think its been 10 years since that he got rid of them and now I've moved out. My girlfriend's sister gave us two betta fishes jut recently and that has sparked my love to wanting to start up a natural planted tank, 10 gallon aquarium in our condo. We just got a 10 gallon tank, Do you have any recommendations on lighting? I've been trying to research, but there is so much different lighting out there, incandesecent, led, and flourescent and I wanted to purchase the right one for my tank. Any advice on brands or specific models? thank you in advance


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## 10asartin (Mar 28, 2013)

I feel like the floramax super daylight bulbs are perfectly sufficient for beginner planted tanks. They are 6500K and low-medium plants will grow well under it.


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## krazeazn (Aug 27, 2013)

Thank you. Do u have a recommendation on what to hook the bulbs to?


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## 10asartin (Mar 28, 2013)

I usually just go ahead and invest in a standard full hood since I usually want a lid for my tanks anyway. 
You could also just purchase the light fixture, which can be easily bought at any chain pet store.


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## peachii (Jan 6, 2013)

So long as the lightbulbs are flourscent and 6500/6700k rated they will grow plants wonderfully. Depending on the look of the lid you want, you can spend 100.00 to 10.00 for a decent light. Do you want it to look amazing or just have it work? The shoplight dome clip on's from any hardware store will work - anything you can screw a CFL light into will work. You can get a glass lid that the light goes through if you want a lid or get a full hood that is black and covers the entire top. Again just depends on how much you want to spend and what you want it to look like. For several of our tanks we have a black reptile lid that the light shines through the holes, just so no one can jump out but it's not ideal for light going through it at all. Stone brought home a bulb the other day that he found at Wal-Mart and it is growing my plants amazingly out of my black clip-on that hangs over the tanks. 

I am not a big fan of LED unless you get the more expensive fixtures from Aquasky, Finnex or BuildmyLED that have been developed just for growing plants, most LED's won't grow your plants very well.

Wal-Mart has a 10 gallon tank kit that has a tank, filter, and hood for 27.00 - even if you don't need the other stuff, the hood by itself is worth the 27.00. Online hoods are around 20.00 then add shipping - it's a better deal to just get the hood and buy plant bulbs to go into it. We had 1 10 gallon with no hood - 4 10 gallons later we finally just bought another light to go over it. It was just to easy and I love plants to much that each 10 gallon kept magically getting stuff put into it.


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## krazeazn (Aug 27, 2013)

thank you peachii, that's very informative...I was looking into the Wal-Mart brand too. My sister gave me a 10 gallon walmart tank without hood/filter and stuff which is why I was posting to find out what would be best to use. thanks for the tips too 10asartin!


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## Blue Fish (Jun 11, 2012)

I've been following Peachii's advice about the flourescent bulbs, and it's worked really well for me thus far. I believe I got the highest wattage I could...so the CF equivalent to a 100 watt? I've got several low light plants, but also some red ludwigia which is a higher light plant, and they're all quite happy and growing well in this setup. 

I purchased two of the desk-type clip on lamps they carry at walmart, each was about 7$, the neck bends and the base clips onto the side of the tank. I bend them so that they're right over top of the water, and clip one to each end of my 20g long tanks. For the cover I got a sheet of plexiglass and cut it to fit, I love the way that looks, cleaner, simpler, just overall a better look in my opinion as compared with the old black hoods. You can get glass or plexi at most Home Depot's or Lowe's stores.


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## krazeazn (Aug 27, 2013)

by any chance do you know what bulb type/model are the replacement ones for the walmart 10 gallon kit?



peachii said:


> So long as the lightbulbs are flourscent and 6500/6700k rated they will grow plants wonderfully. Depending on the look of the lid you want, you can spend 100.00 to 10.00 for a decent light. Do you want it to look amazing or just have it work? The shoplight dome clip on's from any hardware store will work - anything you can screw a CFL light into will work. You can get a glass lid that the light goes through if you want a lid or get a full hood that is black and covers the entire top. Again just depends on how much you want to spend and what you want it to look like. For several of our tanks we have a black reptile lid that the light shines through the holes, just so no one can jump out but it's not ideal for light going through it at all. Stone brought home a bulb the other day that he found at Wal-Mart and it is growing my plants amazingly out of my black clip-on that hangs over the tanks.
> 
> I am not a big fan of LED unless you get the more expensive fixtures from Aquasky, Finnex or BuildmyLED that have been developed just for growing plants, most LED's won't grow your plants very well.
> 
> Wal-Mart has a 10 gallon tank kit that has a tank, filter, and hood for 27.00 - even if you don't need the other stuff, the hood by itself is worth the 27.00. Online hoods are around 20.00 then add shipping - it's a better deal to just get the hood and buy plant bulbs to go into it. We had 1 10 gallon with no hood - 4 10 gallons later we finally just bought another light to go over it. It was just to easy and I love plants to much that each 10 gallon kept magically getting stuff put into it.


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