I have known for several months now that I would eventually need to upgrade my lighting set up. My current stock set up of one twenty watt bulb over twenty nine gallons, was not good enough to grow any but low light plants and see the fish. With Co2 added and fertilization I am able to very slowly grow some low light plants, but this is in adequate for growing a wider variety that I want to grow. So I have been looking around the internet for more powerful lighting fixtures and found myself in a stick. It seems in most situations the lights available are not quite adequate coming in at around forty watts our way over kill at 130 watts. Aiming to get in the two to three watts per gallon range I was hoping to find a thirty inch ninety watt, but with no luck. But I did find one that could work, a double 65 watt that works on independent systems, so I can run either bulb independently, and it also has separate cords to run two timers. This would run me about $150 at Big Al's. With this and reactor Co2 I could grow any plant that I liked the look of as well as speeding up the growth of other plants. I don't have time to do this on the weekend so but I will try to do this as soon as possible.
Over the last couple days I have continued to look at various fish and I have found another two fish that I think could work well in my aquarium. The first and the one I like the better of the two is the Rummy Nosed Tetra. It is a large (5 cm) schooling fish and has a darker back and red head. It is non aggressive and I think they would look excellent in the tank except for one thing. I am using red substrate and red rock as well so they may look washed out amongst it. The second is the harlequin Rasbora. A much smaller fish it comes in a variety of colours but I am leaning towards the rummy nosed or one of the other tetras. In any case I have other plans for this weekend which I will be the subject of my next post. 
