I was wondering about that. I figured LED would be cost effective in the end. Will plants grow well with LED? I haven't ever done live plants in my tank, but I want to do that now.If it's lighting intended for plants, you need to swap out fluorescent tubes yearly or sooner for optimum plant keeping. LEDs you never have to replace.
There's many options out there for LED aquarium strip lights intended for plants. Current Satellite and Finnex Planted fixutres are two popular ones. The other bonus of LED is less power consumption than fluorescent, but that depends on the size of the fixtures of course.
Just be sure to research which type of aquarium plants you wish to keep and what type of lighting is needed for them. They have to be geared for one another.
I have two 55 gallon tanks. I havent bought hoods or lights as of yet. I am debating going hoodless on at least one if not both.What size tank do you have? This will also help determine what type of plants would be best.
That is what I plan to do, unless I go hoodless. I really dont like the plastic tops. Both of my tanks are in "window" type space between two separate rooms. I was going to fill the latteral space with hanging plants that aren't toxic to the fish. I thought hoodless would be nice in at least one of those spaces because it is so high up I am not worried about much getting into it. I thought the hanging plants draping down into the tank would provide lovely top cover. I know i have to deal with evaporation, but otherwise, i thought it might work out quite nice. Any thoughts?