[jasert39]

Im starting a new tank and I am planning to using all live plants to decorate, my question is how many hours of light per day all of you use to keep that play alive and well. I am looking in the amazon swords to start with.

My tank hardly gets any natural sunlight so it would be a matter of how much time a day my tank light is turned on.

 

[Sir Nathan XXI]

I use 12hrs on and 12 off with a light timer, my swords do well, my advice is to mix your plants up some, it will make for a nicer looking tank, stay away from bunched plants if you are keeping a shoal of pygos in that tank, they WILL NOT STAY ROOTED, that is unless they are babies

 

[rday]

a related question i have is does the type of light matter? do you specifically need the flourescent grow lights or will regular flourescent lights work? or incandescent for that matter?

 

[Sir Nathan XXI]

incandescent = bad in my opinion, they arent energy efficient.

I use one plant bulb and one sun bulb on my 125g

both found at lowes, grow lux, and sunstick 48" 40w florescent bulbs

 

[SnowCichlid]

plants will still grow with incadesent but it is not as efficient as mentioned.
amazon swords are a fairly eassy plant to care for and are cheap to purchase as well. And if given some time will root realy well within your subtrae