What kind of lights for a loach tank?

[doglover_50]

If I were to go more natural and add some basic plants, what type of light and watts would I need? Tank is 75gallon, 21" tall.

Loaches don't like bright light, do they? So is there a balance to strike?
Thanks i advance....

[KamikazeBen]

I imagine if by "basic plants" you mean "Java ferns" you could probably get away with putting a single incandescent bulb somewhere in the remote proximity of your tank, and be juuuust fine. There's only a few plants to my knowledge that go well in loach tanks, and the only other one I can think of aside from the java fern is anubia, and both of these are pretty low-light plants, and would do well in a tank with low wattage.

[doglover_50]

ha! From what I've read from Emma and others, with my clowns it probably isn't worth it to begin with!

[KamikazeBen]

ha! From what I've read from Emma and others, with my clowns it probably isn't worth it to begin with!

It really isn't. If you WANT to do them, the Java fern takes a lot of abuse and just keeps on going though.

[crazy loaches]

Are you just wanting to change bulbs or the whole fixture? Do you have a canopy to mount lights in? Or are they to be suspended above the tank? Can you do some basic wiring yourself? There are so many choices we need something to start limiting the selection. I dont think even java fern will do that well with just an incandescent bulb over a 75g, unless its about 300W or more. If you did happen to have an incandescent light hood already though a great solution is to replace the bulbs with the screw-in compact fluorecent bulbs (in the daylight color range ~6500K).

[doglover_50]

I currently have the standard light fixture that came with the tank from Petsmart--two low watt fluorescent bulbs.

So my question would be referring to obtaining a new fixture or canopy that had PC or VHO (can't really afford MH) bulbs. It seems though that the high wattage to grow plants wouldn't be the greatest if the loaches prefer subdued lighting.

I've been happy enough so far to have nice-looking silk plants well-covered in algae--almost almost kinda somewhat maybe realistic looking.

This whole idea is probably not worth it for me given that the clowns will beat up the plants.

[Pixelated_Pirate]

On a scale from 1-10, (1 being least important and 10 being very important) how important is light in a loach tank. Like with bring lights (ie. LFS) will they be stressed, or can they grow to live with bright lights? Clearly dimmer lights is the ideal situation. But how important is it?