Aquarium Lighting Tips for Plants

My number one tip to keeping aquarium lights from plants is to make sure you have a bright enough light that is the right color spectrum that your plants are eating. Aquarium plants in general like a light spectrum between 6000 K to 7000 K. This is a more white colored lighting that replicate sunlight better than the yellow lighting. Most generic plants LED lights are around the 6000 K spectrum of color.

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Another tip to aquarium lighting for plants is to raise your light 5 to 8 inches above the aquarium. A lot of fish keepers just sat there plant light on top of their lid and that’s not the best idea. By raising the light above the actual aquarium, it helps to flood out the lighting to all areas of the aquarium. If you only set the light on top of the tank, it’s almost like it’s too close in too aggressive for the plants to be that close.

Top 10 Easy Beginner Aquarium Plants

You can save a lot of money by using shop line LEDs that are sold and home-improvement stores. They usually come in 4 foot strips and work great for larger aquariums like 55 gallons in above. This is a great DIY hack to save a lot of money on larger, planted aquarium lighting.

[TeresaMendoza-peyl]

My 2nd question is my aquarium get light from window from 8 am to 5pm, so i closed my led light, it is acceptable ? since i noticed less algae produced... thanks again

[DiggingRob]

Great Rundown on Plant Lighting…Thanks for sharing

[desiraerigdon]

Love your house it’s amazing and my goal!

[Twinkieuddy]

I’m a plant person as well so i have a bunch of Barrina LED lights laying around since they work so well for my house plants. I am trying to use one for my 10 gal aquarium but I’m not sure if i should just upgrade to a proper planted aquarium light. Idk if that will help with my algae issues and keeping plants alive.

[toddbigeasy]

Chris thanks. I'm currently in the planning stage of converting an old reef tank to planted. It's a 60. Looking st nicrew or hygger. Live the glasses btw! And new haircut.

[hopestubbs]

Very helpful video, but I do have one question. How do you test for deficiencies in the aquarium. I am experiencing a sudden die off

[madwomanofdonnellyst]

Love this! Your awesome collection of tanks goes from strength to strength in each vid.

I’m sure it’s been asked and answered a million times by now, but how much time does tank upkeep take you?

[FranknBerry]

I appreciate you sharing your experience you have amazing set up love all your aquariums it’s obvious you know what you’re talking about I am looking for advice on lighting for my 30 gallon aquarium so this has been very informative thank you

[benjaminrapp]

I've had good luck with both Nicrew and Aquaneat lights. The Nicrew are built like tanks. My only gripe is I find they tend to wash out the colors a bit too much for my eyes. The Aquaneat are about as cheap as you can get and are plastic, but they've kept my plants happy and their colors aren't as harsh as the Nicrew. Neither in the same league as a Chihiros or anything, but I'm too cheap to spend that kind of money on a damn light.

[seamus]

Hard to find a video on decent lighting for a Deep Tank. I've had live plants since I was a kid. But in recent years I've moved towards tall tanks, 30 to 36 inches tall. And tall plants also. They can be a pain as far as having to reach down in 36 inches of water to rearrange everything. But I like the way they look. My lights reach down well enough now. But I wish I could find decent brightness to the bottom at a decent cost too.

[lepgirlphx]

Omg Hello! I just came across your channel & wanted to watch a video of yours! Wow! I’m sooo Impressed! How fun of a set up you have!! I don’t do aquarium plants, but I do plants 🪴 in general & wanted to know abt lights for winter/cold. So nice to see all this, I was glued to watching & will watch more! You are the King of Lighting!! Very Good! You love your job! Do you sell plants to the public for tanks?
Is this what you do for business? I was curious! Good Job Dude!

[TeresaMendoza-peyl]

Thanks a bunch for your vivid video... but i have a question i have white and blue led light and also i have yellow led, which will be better for using 24 gallon planted aquarium (CABOMBA PLANTS)... thanks again ... Regards

[thekdaffshow]

You just saved me some money, thank you 🙏🏽 for that.

[angelaclopton]

Great video, 1st time watching your content. I look forward to checking out your other channel as well about houseplants. :)

[ALvatar]

How long do you leave lights on for planted aquarium

[matthewblankenship]

I’ve tried a few led lights and I’ve have the best success on the full spectrum with blues reds and greens like the Hygger you showed at the end ..I have same light on a couple tanks and plants love that spectrum ✌🏻

[whateverwhenever_]

Hey Chris. I have 2 125s with just shubunkin and calico fantail. Each 125 has a beamswork DA 6000k light, sitting on the tops. I get alot of brown diatom algae. I have grown anacharis in the past but now I can't get them to grow. Do I need to upgrade to a 10, 000k beamswork DA full spectrum or maybe get a 6 foot shop light, if Walmart sells them? What are your thoughts? All your plants look amazing!!!

[MiaJ-ts]

What about Fluval plant 3.0? I like your green wall.

[VolcanixAquatix]

I want a cylinder tank SO BAD OMG. but thanks for the light help. My micro tank in my window pearls all the time and i cant trim the plants fast enough 😂, but my other tanks that cannot go in a window, are just struggling the poor things 😂 so appreciate this

[WhatIsMisophonia]

On the topic of house plants and aquarium plants using similar spectrums: It is certainly true that most house plants are shade plants and most aquarium plants are also shade plants. Further, most aquarium plants are amphibious, and are every bit if not more likely to grow above water at a tropical forest floor, much in the way many house plants do.

However, water absorbs blue and red light differently than air, such that blue light is absorbed very quickly by the water molecules themselves while red light is absorbed by dissolved organic carbon (doc) and the larger particulate organic carbon (poc). Not only this, but the light coming through the forest canopy is already more red light because more of the blue light is absorbed by the trees' leaves. Diana Walstad suspects based on her own experimentation that GREEN light plays an underrated and important role in planted aquariums, which would make sense seeing as how more of it would be available in natural conditions for these plants.

Based on greenhouse experimentations that I've studied, while red light is more necessary for a variety of plant functions, shade plants like your typical above water house plant (even the ones marketed as "high light" are in nature often found in the shade, it's just that they're not found in deep shade, and so require more light) have been found to grow about the same regardless of the proportion of red vs blue light used. However, if you want them to flower, most plants need red light.