Emory

10 gallon tank with fish and live plants, desire low light, will not have any super duper plant supporting CO2 stuff - might try a DIY CO2 infuser one day.

Which do you think is better, fluorescent or incandescent?

pinkfloydpuffer

Definitely fluorescent. Incandescent doesn't grow plants very well.

J J Indy

I would say flourescent try for a bulb with as close to 6000k rating it is for the plants and it really helps i have put them in my community tank and looks great actually brings out the color in the fish as well. I think the one i bought was from petsmart and was 6500k pricey though about $17 a bulb. good luck.

GreenMan13

If you use incandescent you will need about 4 times the wattage to get the same amount of actual light. incandescent are only if you never plan to have any plants in the tank and don't care about the yellow color and a dim lit tank.

Go with a 6000K ish color screw in CFL for your 10 gallon with at least 10 watts. You can get them at walmart or homedepot for cheap. Just get one that says Daylight and it will be close to 6000K.

soldieroffortune1974

Gro-lux bulbs are really beneficial for plants.The bulbs are specifically made for growing plants.

A few things to keep in mind about incandescent versus flourescent lighting.

Flourescent bulbs
-generally last longer
-have a wider range light spectrum
-create less heat (critical for smaller aquariums)
-put out more lumens per watt (5 watts flourescent is about as bright as a 20 watt incandescent)
-require less energy

Emory

I was looking into trying to do a DIY light that GreenMan suggested to someone. I canned that idea as I am inept with tools and prone to unintentional self inflicted injury. Alas, I have decided to purchase some sort of fixture for my 10 gallon. I have looked in my local stores and online.

If I go with a fluorescent fixture this is the most common thing I am seeing and it would put me at about 1.5 watts per gallon.

I would love this for my 29 gallon.

Thank you for your advice and info! Any more will be welcomed!

GreenMan13

Does your 10 gallon have nothing on it right now? Like no hood at all? Most small tanks that size I have seen come with a hood that has a screw socket and a incandescent bulb. If that is the case you can just stick in a screw in CFL. That's what I had in my 10 gallon and what I have in my 5 gallon right now.

GreenMan13

If you don't have a hood, you can get something like this - Cheap hood if the tank is 20" long. I think that's a standard 10 gallon. And then buy some of those CFL bulbs at walmart/homedepot and you can have about 3 WPG with two 15 watt CFLs. Could go lower if you dont have a lot of plants in even.

Emory

GreenMan - I looked at "cheap hood" in the recent past and assumed it was for incandescent. Problem is that I assumed.... I'm sure we all know what that means.

So I can do that? Because that would be perfect. I mean.... the amount of access to the tank from up front is dinky but... it would fix my light issue.

I do have something on it right now. I have a clear glass canopy up on top... and a desk lamp at the side of the tank shining in. Ghetto, huh?

Could I use your CFL bulb suggestion with any incandescent fixture? Being that the "cheap hood" you link accepts two bulbs I may just get that and the bulbs you suggested.

*feels like someone has shed a little light on the subject * Thanks folks!!!!!!

soldieroffortune1974

Compact flourescent lights should work perfectly for that,just remember not to over do the wattage.The max watts is listed on the reflector part,the 2 bulbs together should not go over that rating (risk fire/short/overload),other than that they should work great.

Emory

Ah, so each bulb cannot be 25 watts. Poop! Thats why GreenMan said that would give me 2.5 watts/gallon. *it sinks in *

Thanks!

soldieroffortune1974

with compact flourescent lighting,and flourescents in general,pay attention the the ACTUAL wattage. A 5 watt bulb puts out approximately the same light as a 20 watt incandescent,so if you can find 2 10 watt bulbs (actual wattage) it would be equivalent to 40 watts OUTPUT,but still under the ACTUAL rating listed on the max rating.Depending on the bulb you could conceivably get 100 watt OUTPUT,but be close to the ACTUAL max rating. I hope I didn't confuse you (I know when I 1st heard about it,it didn't quite sink in) A standard 23 watt compact bulb ACTUAL WATT RATING puts out a 100 WATT EQUIVALENT. If I didn't confuse you,then you could obtain a 6 watt pr gallon or more,and still be under or at your max rating.

EDIT** here's a link that can explain better than I can.It's from GE,and should be able to answer most questions.

http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_li...aq_compact.htm

GreenMan13

This is not completely true. When we talk wpg in terms of fish tanks it is in reference to florescent wattage output. So what you need to look at is not the so called equivalent output (it is equivalent to the lumen output of of an incandescent) but the actual input of the bulb. The equivalent number is useless in this application. Both numbers are technically useless as plants don't live off wattage but lumens (the actual light from the bulb/sun). If you really want to get it right you can try and find how much lumens a plant needs and get the right amount of lumen output for that plant. That's quite a bit of work specially for plants so the standard has become 1-5 wpg of FLORESCENT light which give off about 150 lumens on avg per watt. Incandescent give off about 15 lumens per watt. These numbers vary slightly as to how the bulbs are made and quality but they don't have a huge difference. So your example is not quite correct.


Most likely that hood is like mine and says something like this: "Use bulbs 25 MAX. or less." That means it is 25 watts per bulb so with two sockets, 50 watts total. If you can find 25 watt bulbs that would give you a max of 5 wpg which is plenty if not too much depending on the plants. I currently have two 15watts in mine which should be plenty since the tank is not very deep on a 10 gallon.

And yes, I have done quite a bit of research on lighting for my tanks and I studied light and electronics in Collage as well. Just something I don't mind reading about.

soldieroffortune1974

Greenman13 I wasn't refering to the WPG,but using the actual wattage to determine what the appliance can handle. You don't want to screw a 60 watt bulb into an appliance with a 30 watt max rating.

I apparently wasn't making that clear (I thought not) that's why I included the link from GE.

Emory

We (my husband and I) went out and got an incandescent fixture that holds two bulbs. The max wattage is 25 watts per bulb. We are heading to Wal-Mart in about 15 minutes to get CFLs. What is the max wattage of CFL bulbs that you recommend?

soldieroffortune1974

I think the smallest cfl bulb is 5 watts. See the link I gave for GE,it will answer many questions. The max watt bulb you can get for that fixture,according to it's rating,would be a 25 watt bulb,2 25 watt bulbs is 50 watts total. How much you actually need in a 10 gallon aquarium,is going to depend on what type of plants you plan to put in it.

Most plants would do fine in a 10 gal,with 2 5 watt bulbs.(cfl) that's about 40 watts total = 4 wpg You wouldn't need anything bigger than the minimum 5 watt bulb.

Emory

Hmm... got home, put the bulbs in, turned everything on and it all looks good. Very white and bright, but looks so much better than the incandescent.

In my 2.5 gallon with a 15 watt incandescent bulb I replaced the bulb with a 10 watt CFL.

In our 10 gallon we have the incandescent hood with two sockets, each accepting up to 25 watts. We put a 10 watt CFL in each of those sockets.

My husband assured me that this was alright but I think it contradicts what you two are telling me.

I saw in a different thread basically the same conversation and someone said they had a 10 watt CFL in their incandescent hood.

Do I need to look for the 2 watt CFL online as mentioned above? Did I mess up? Am I going to melt my hoods?

I'm sorry I'm so dense about this topic. I guess my light is a bit dim.

GreenMan13

That will give you about 4 wpg which may or may not be too much depending on whats in it plant wise. Most likely it is fine. Might heat up the water a bit since it is a small tank. Probably only enough to keep the heater off more.

That would give you 2 wpg so perfect in my opinion unless you are going with heavy demand plants.

Your husband is right. This is what I have been trying to suggest you do. Don't worry about finding 2 watt bulbs unless your 2.5 gallon tank is looking too bright for the plants in it. A 5 watt bulb would probably work then instead of a 2 watt anyways. Your hoods will need a lot more heat to melt. Take some pictures if you can.