I just picked up a 30 gallon cube tank and i'd like to stock it full of various live plants. for now i have an aqua glo 15 watt bulb. I figure they sell these tanks with the 19 watt ballast not anticipating anyone ever wanting to put plants in their aquarium. I plan on keeping mostly tropical fw fish, such as the gouramis and rasboras i have. The tank is 20" wide(the fixture on there now is 19", housing a 18" light), and the water is 20" deep. So, the hole is getting deeper, and i'd like to get the problem solved for under 50 bucks. any suggestions?

Will the only thing you can do is buy a new light fixture. Right now you have less than 1wpg.......so you can stick with low light level plants. Java moss java fern a few to name a couple. To answer you question as why they sell tanks with only an 18watt light, it mainly there for the view of the fish, thats it. To get a fixture for under 50.00 that will give you at least 2 wpg will be difficult. The place where I get my compact Flos. is AQUATRADERS.COM they sell the Odyssea lights... I been using the CF light for years now and had no problems with them.... I did buy a T-6 light from them and it was crap, the 2008 style look complete like an Aqualight fixture with fans and most coke with lunar light built in. One thing I will say is that no matter what fixture you buy you should also buy replacement bulb for it, Flor bulb weather you are using them or not age just the same, in other words a fixture that been sitting on th e shelf or 12 months has bulbs that are 12 months old and in a planted tank thats not good, because it loses the grow ing quaility of the bulb.

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Gold Coast Aquarium Society South Florida
www.goldcoastaquarium.org

I couldn't find 20" lights from odyssea anywhere, and google is so croweded with forum results from odyssea lights that i couldn't find another page to search for the 20" lights.