lyndatu

Hello

I have a 20-gallon freshwater plant aquarium supported by a 20-watt Hagen Aqua-Glo fluorescent bulb. We could only use a 20-watt bulb because bulbs with higher wattage are too big for my tank. I also bought an aluminum reflector to maximize the light's efficiency. But of course, my plants weren't happy with the weak light. I've had strong diatom outbreaks and most of my plants grew thinly or withered away. I wanted to have at least a 40 watt bulb for my tank so it can have 2 watts per gallon, but then again the ones I found were way too long. I was wondering - does having two 20 watt bulbs give an effect of 40 watts to my tank and plants' health? Or is there another solution on having a strong-enough light?

Oh, and I have another question - sorry for posting it on one thread because my computer gets stuck a lot. When making the liquid solution for a DIY CO2 yeast injector, is it ok to use brown sugar instead of white?

Your replies are appreciated. Thanks in advance!

lyndatu

Hello and sorry for double-posting (I can't seem to find the edit button). I would just like to point out that the higher-watted bulbs are too big for my tank in terms of size. Replies are appreciated!

Hello! Found the Edit Button! I would like to add another question(sorry for all the questions! ) It may sound weird, but, is 40 watts a large amount of electricity? My family is not exactly rich but DH is pretty keen on the electric bill. My tank lights are turned on 10 hours a day. How big is 40 watts? Can you make a comparison? I'm not very good at technicalities.

Thanks in advance!

mathas

More or less. Unless each bulb has its own reflector, having one 40W bulb would put slightly more light into the tank than two 20W bulbs, but the difference would probably be unnoticeable.

I would assume so. I know that many people use brown sugar in addition to white sugar, I don't see why it couldn't be used by itself. Note that I don't use DIY CO2, so I'm not exactly an expert.

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...tml#post389944

Electricity is usually billed by the kilowatt-hour (kWh), at least in the United States. As the name sort of implies, a kilowatt-hour is 1000W of electricity use for a 1 hour period.

So given that, a 40W light should use 0.04 kWh if left on for an hour... if you left it on for 10 hours as you mentioned, it would be 0.4 kWh. 0.4 kWh daily, for an entire year, would be 146 kWh (.4 * 365)... if we divide that by 12 months (since most utilities are billed monthly in my experience), we have 12.16 kWh per month.

Electricity charges vary by area... in my area, since it's summer right now, my electricity costs 8.63¢ per kWh. If I ran a 40W light for 10 hours every day, my electrical bill would increase approximately $1.05 per month.

It's early, hopefully that math came out correctly

lyndatu

Hello and thank you very much, mathas!

I am relieved on the electric bill part - that shouldn't anger DH much. I'm also positive about using brown sugar for the yeast solution. I sure hope the two-20-watt-bulb plan works well. But I would like to be sure if two 20-watt bulb(both with reflectors) does really give a 2-watt per gallon intensity(will the plants grow healthier? Will the tank be able to support higher-light demanding plants(not intense-light demanding plants!) Thanks again for the reply and more replies are appreciated!

mathas

Yes.

Most likely.

That's getting into the range where you might want to consider a fertilizer like SeaChem Flourish once or twice a week, especially with CO2 supplementation.

As far as lighting goes, yes. But as I alluded to, lighting isn't the only determinant of overall plant health.