planted tank

[baseballfan]

I have recently started a heavily planted tank that is 75 gallons. I am using eco complete, flourish excel and root tabs. I have a lighting fixture with 4 bulbs that equal 260 watts: 2 65 watts daylight bulbs and 2 65 watt actinic, and a standard 32 watt light fixture that came with the aquarium. My problem is though I have recently heard that actinic bulbs do not benefit live plants and if that is true then is my 75 gallon tank is only getting 162 watts. Should I replace these two actinic bulbs and get two more daylight bulbs? Also I have dwarf baby tear plant ground cover and I was wondering would it be okay with about 2.16 watts. Lastly, what would good nutrients for bunched plants?

[Wiskey]

4*65 W PC over a 75G FWP tank is pretty high light,.. I don't see any mention of pressurized CO2 injection,.. Are you using it?

It is true that atinic bulbs provide little light to plants, but they still do something,.. I would say they give the plants about half the useable light that a 6500K bulb would.

Do you like the way the atinics look?

Look up the Tom barr method of fertilizing (I hope that's right,.. it's been a while) and it will give you a good start in ferts for your plants. Basically you dose a bunch of liquid ferts, then reset the tank before Algae can take over. Many very high light plant keepers use his methods.

But I warn you,.. I wouldn't do it without CO2 - if you don't have that, with the lighting you've got, it would be my first addition.

Whiskey