In one of my 40 breeders I am doing s south east asian swamp biotype tank so I will have dwadf gouramis in it but I also want to do a fair amount of plants. Its a 40 breeder so it is short, I have a 36 inch strip light with two 15 watt bulbs and a power compact (that me and my boss made) that has five 9 watt bulbs (3 white and 2 blue) bringing me to a total of 85 watts, slightly over 2 watts per gallon. Robyn you seem to know the most about plants is this enough? I was planning on plants like hygrofla and anubias.

isnt anubias african? on liveaquaria it says its farm rasied from us but im not sure. what other fish you putting in?

I want to do some dwarf gourami's a pair of pearls a school of rasboras a betta and probably some bottom feeders.

My 40 gallon breeder has 60 W of fluorescent lighting which is a minimum for regular plants. It's enough for Anubias but perhaps not Hygrophilia which likes a lot of light. If I am correct in assuming all the bulbs you mentioned are full spectrum or plant-type fluorescent lights, then it should be enough. I use Triton brand bulbs but there are other fluorescents that should work for plants as well. I'm not sure about the blue bulbs. Are those then fluorescents made for reef aquaria (blue actinic)?

Yes the blue bulbs are the blue actinic designed for reef aquaria when I had all whites in i did not like the color of the tank. The two 15 watt bulbs are lights designed for plants yes. What plants do you have in your 40 breeder? Thank you for your help.

I don't have any live plants in my 40 gallon right now but with the same lighting, my 50 gallon has java moss, frogbit, Anubias nana, a few crypts and that's about it. My 20 gallon has floating fern, Anubias nana, java fern, and maybe something else. So, they're mostly low-light plants. The high-light plants died a long time ago. The reason the 40 gallon has no plants is because my 14" common pleco and large apple snail (who died a month ago) ate everything.

your putting a betta with gouramis? what about some lower level fish? cherry barbs and siamese algae eaters are great.