I am thinking about doubling my light to have 4 x 55 (AH) on my 55 gallon. I do have some minor hair algae problems at the moment. Nothing to terrible. .

I am thinking about adding more because I don't have good coverage with 2 lights. There are some darker spots. I am having trouble growing some baby tears and my hyro sunset is a bit leggy. I am a bit concerned putting that much light on will cause more trouble than good though?

Thanks Rick

go for it since you have pressurized co2. just make sure you are dosing plenty of NO3, PO4, and traces in the mean time, as the plants will obviously begin consuming more.

rrguymon,i have a 55 gal with one allglass 110 watt compact. grows baby tears great. that much light takes up a lot of room on top of tank. are you sure it will fit? regards,cornhusker

I will have to make a DIY hood but it will fit. I have ordered the lights. I will probably do some sort of a staggared on off for the them. I am thinking about having the the back row 110w on for 11 hours and the front row 110w on for 6 hours or so.

My baby tears are planted near the center of the tank and there is kind of a gap between the two 55 bulbs there and dark spot I guess. The baby tears are not doing so well. My scape is high on both ends of the tank and low in the center.

In the DIY hood I will have the gap between the lights on the back row in the center and on the front row I will butt the two lights close together in the center. Hopefuly this will give me more even coverage.

I am also looking at ditching the 55g tank and getting a 75 or 80 gallon and I will need the extra light. I gotta go in small steps or my wife notices how much money I am spending on the tank

i've got 300w on my 55g...plants love it and it's actually not overkill on a heavily planted tank at all!

What type of lighting is your 300 watts? That is a lot of light.

i've got a 4x65 w (6700k) coralife fixture with a supplimental 40 w T5. i think it's a 3100k bulb...adds a really nice red colour to the 6700k's.

I ran the coralife 4X65 total 260watts on my 55 gallon tank for over a year. Grow some nice plants- hope you like trimming plants! This was my main complaint with this much light. After a while I staggered the lights so that the second bank only came on for 4 hours in the afternoon. Gave the plants the benefits of higher light without the super fast growth.