dancerhas

Our 10 gallon betta tank has 2, 15 watt incandescent bulbs in it. To me they seem kinda dull and yellow. Is there anything I could replace them with that might be a bit brighter and more natural?

pinkfloydpuffer

Yeah, I replaced mine with compact fluorescent screw-in bulbs. I like them alot better.

dancerhas

Those look promising. Which do you think would be better, 3100K or 5100K bulbs?

pinkfloydpuffer

Um... honestly I am no light-techie. Lol. Um, maybe if you google it you can see what the light spectrum is for those K levels... or probably someone else knows.

dancerhas

oh, rats, I was hoping you knew what yours were. haha. 5100 is full spectrum, 2700 is a 100 watt incandescent, and 2500 is a 40 watt incandescent, so I think a 3100 or 3500 should probably be enough of an improvement for me. Now if I can just find these in a store...

pinkfloydpuffer

Well... mine were the only kind they had in the store... so yeah... lol

dancerhas

lol

J J Indy

I have actually seen the screw in compact flourescent replacement bulbs for incandescent hoods belive it or not at Walmart by the hoods they were around $5 each. As for the kelvin rating i didnt pay attention to what they were but if you have plants and a choice than i would try to get as close to 6000 or better if you can. I recently had to replace the flourescent bulbs that came with my hoods and put in 6700k bulbs and my plants have never looked better.

dancerhas

Wow, that is indeed a surprise. I'll have to look next time I'm there. We don't have any live plants it's mainly just visual appeal. Thanks!

GreenMan13

Walmart or Homedepot have CFLs that will work. Just look for the ones that say Daylight and they will be in the 5000K to 6500K range which will give off a white color rather then yellow.

dancerhas

some of the lowest available are around 4-5 watts which is around 25 watts incandescent...that equates to 5 WPG if I install two of those. lol. I think that's a little overkill. I may have to order 2-3 watters off the internet.

GreenMan13

The watts per gallon is based off floresent values not incandescent ones so a 5 watt bulbs will give you 0.5 wpg not 25. Incandescent bulbs are worthless for growing plants. I have 14 watt bulb on my bettas 10 gallon tank and it works great.

dancerhas

OHHH! that makes it much much easier then, lol!

That was extremely helpful, you shall recieve reputation.

capekate

Be very careful when you decide to go to a higher wattage in those hoods with the screw in bulbs. I also have that on one of my betta tanks and a higher wattage can melt your hood, like it did to mine. The incandescent got to hot. Im glad to find out that they have fluorescent bulbs as well. I will have to look for those.

dancerhas

When it says 25-Watt (or whatever) Rated, I'm guessing it means actual power draw...In which case I'd be cutting the total power draw by around half.

Our hood also has aluminum reflectors above the bulbs. This helps keep the temps reasonable...our hood never even gets warm with the 15 watters. Thanks for the tip though.

capekate

Thats the same hood set up that I have. After looking over at the three betta tanks I realized I made a mistake. It was one of the hoods with the tube that melted a bit for some reason.. which I cant figure out why that happened. I thought at the time I posted that response that it was the hood with the two socket light set up.
Sorry about that..

TropicalGrimmish

same here, i run compact fluorescent bulbs 9watt way brighter the the bulbs the tank came with. oh ya they really "don't" get hot at all..

fishlover78

I hate the yellowish look of incandescent bulbs for aquariums