Tank Lighthing - Upside Down Cats (and others)

[Treefork]

I've got a 29 gallon tank with 5 upside down cats, 1 african butterfly fish, a young bristlenose pleco and an inherited banjo catfish. Would like to provide lighting more appropriate for the catfish. The lighting on it now is a standard 29 gallon light strip fluorescent. Any suggestions that I could do with the light I have? Are there products I can attach to my bulb to lessen the light or just get a lower wattage bulb? Colors? The only plants I have in this tank are some anubias and java moss.

[MatsP]

The (cat-)fish themselves will be perfectly happy with nearly no light at all. If you want to dim the current light a bit, you could wrap a bit of aluminum foil around parts of your light. Make sure it's the "baking foil" variety, not "freezer foil", which can be plastic-coated, and that could get hot and make a mess...

--
Mats

[Birger]

I think you will have to keep the light, maybe if it is high intensity get a lower wattage if the plants will still grow...mostly because the fish will also appreciate the plants.

The ideal thing is too get the combination with moon LED light, put it on timers and then you can also watch your catfish in the "dark".

Birger

[Treefork]

Ok here's what I did for now. I took the aluminum foil and put it across the glass top of the tank with the light sitting on top of it. I moved the anubias to the right hand side of the tank (I also have a good bit of driftwood piled in there as well) and left about 3-4 inches of light open on the right side. I must say for the low tech fix it looks fantastic (reminds me of the low light tanks at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago) and the upside down cats immediately started swimming around after I did it.

Joe