sirdarksol

I may have a chance to pick up a 48" compact fluorescent set for a ridiculously low price, and have some questions.
First of all, the unit uses 65W, straight-pin compact fluorescent bulbs, and I'm wondering if it can also accept the 55W, straight-pin compacts (which are the same length).
Second, they come with dual-daylight bulbs, which are half 6,700 and half 10,000. This will be going over a freshwater tank, and I'm wondering if these bulbs will be ok or if I'm going to have to find some straight 6,700. I had the dual-daylight bulbs in a different setup and the plants in that tank ended up dying, but I'm not positive that it was the bulb (or it may have been that the bulb was too bright for the little tank it was over.)

Wolfgang8810

6700k and 10 k are ideal for plant growth and i dont think it was the light that killed them why would you want to change the bulb for a dimmer one?

sirdarksol

Actually, that was tied to the "heat" question, and your answer makes the question relatively moot, as the issue was I couldn't find any 6,700k 65w bulbs that weren't horrendously expensive.

I'm actually nearly positive that something about the light is what killed my plants. There is a piece of driftwood in the tank, and anything that was hidden by the driftwood was ok (to the point that some leaves were rotted only to the point where the driftwood's shadow began), and anything that was on the other side of the tank, which had a 6,700k lightbulb was fine. It was only the stuff under that one bulb that died. But the bulb was brighter than the 6,700k, and, as I said, the tank is pretty small. On top of that, everything I got was for mid to low light levels.

jsalemi

In answer to your question about wattage, yes, you can go lower if the pins are compatible with your fixture. There's almost never a problem putting a lower wattage bulb in a fixture -- you just don't want to exceed the fixture's rated wattage. So a 55w in a 65w fixture is fine; an 85w wouldn't be.

sirdarksol

I was just wondering if anyone knew if the pins would be compatible between a 65w straight pin and a 55w straight pin.

Gozer_1

I believe so yes. Not entirely certain but pretty sure.

COBettaCouple

I think as long as the length and pin arrangement are the same, there should be a problem with the wattage up to the max. rated watts.

I think the higher the K, the more intensity the light has and I see on the real high ones that they're for marine tanks or deep tanks and maybe the tank that had that dual-daylight tube was too shallow for the 10,000K bulb and did the plants in? Maybe that's why plant tubes that I see go down to 2,800K? Just thinking out loud, I'm definitely not a lighting expert and am just starting to learn about it.