Let there be (more) light!

Yesterday I finally managed to come home early from work for once. Looked at my aquarium and thought... why the heck is the grass growing so slowly when everything is growing like mad?! Could it be that the grass is all the way down in the tank and there isn't enough light reaching it? Maybe... considering the fact that the lights are on the behind-half of the tank. Since I still had a small portion of the aluminium reflector, I thought I'd cram in another 36W PL-L tube at the front portion of the hood.

Went shopping in the morning and started working at noon. You'll need a PL-L tube, 40W electronic ballast, relfector, clips for holding fluorescent tubes and one of those wiring block things. Might as well attach the 2 DC fans to the hood so I can fully close the hood.

Fan grills help to smooth out the holes and make it look slightly more elegant. The left one blows onto the water and the right one sucks hot air out. Gotta flushmount the fans properly one day.

So now I have 80W + 36W = 116W / 45 gallons = 2.6 watts per gallon. I guess that moves me into medium lighting territory. Hopefully the grass will grow and algae won't.

Here's what it looks like after 28 days

Trimmed the Cabomba and Hydrocotyle leucocephala because they've already reached the surface and started growing horizontally. Added Rotala marcandra in the back and middle of the driftwood, hopefully to add more colour to the scape. Split the Hygrophilla difformis to try and cover up the driftwoood a bit. Also bought some unknown small-leaved plant.