A lot is going to be determined by your planting and plant selection. If you plan on using t8's, you'll want to stick primarily with plants that prefer more shade, like ferns and aroids. Growth will be very slow. Agonizing, even. For a tank that is several feet in depth, you'll need to run 2 banks of lights, one bank won't give you enough coverage, especially as plants start to grow.

Ideally, t5ho or led would be the way to go, especially if you want to grow any flowering plants, since most prefer brighter lighting. led's will pierce through heavy plant mass and reach the substrate with some intensity, the others will be filtered by plant mass. It's not much different than a planted tank, the difference is that instead of water filtering the light, lowering par values, you will have plant mass to deal with.

I use t5ho, LED and t8 shop lights over my tanks. Each light is matched to the tank and the flora planted inside. For example: no orchids in my t8 tanks, they only get t5 or led. The shop light tanks keep all shade loving plants. Your best bet would be to combine lighting, a bank of t8 shop lights, supplemented by a few higher output fixtures.


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