The Krib Plants Misc. So now that we've established that it's impossible to give a perfect formula for your exact lighting requirements, let's try to do it anyway, just for fun. The green squares are data from Amano's Nature Aquarium World series, and the red triangles originate from a survey of folks on the Internet. The few black circles represent typical single-strip lighting fixtures sold with the appropriate tanks.
All data points use either fluorescent or metal halide.
First, it's worth noting there is a repeatable trend, around which the wattage varies typically by a factor of 2 in either direction. This might seem a strange calculation at first, but when you stop to think of it, it does make sense, as the light falls on an area , not a volume. Amano, Nature Aquarium World Volumes 1-3, TFH Publications. Here are some comments by others about this article. Up to Misc.