Steve420

Hi,

Has anyone used these bulbs before...

http://www.petco.com/product/11440/C...r-50-Bulb.aspx

I'm trying to find an inexpensive way to improve the lighting in my tanks. Currently I have incadescent lights (which are kind of lame) and am using those cheap-o $1.99 aquarium bulbs you get from Walmart.

At this time, I can't really afford to go out and by new flourescent fixtures so I was wondering if using this CFL bulb would achieve similar results?

Also does the 50% blue light really make that big of a deal? I've looked at CFLs at like Homedepot and such, but none of those have the 50% blue light. Is it really worth the extra money?...regular CFLs are way cheaper than these.

Oh yeah....and I don't have any live plants.

Any help or guidance is appreciated.

Steve

na/mustang1

from what ive heard cfl's are sopposed to be good i have never used them though i currently have 120 flourescant lamp

cerianthus

Actually, 50/50 which has Actnic lighting, will intensify(?) neon/metallic colors of fish such as neons, certain corys but may be bit dimmer than full daylight CFB.

SammyJ

Its your call if its worth the price. I use 9w CFL bulbs from Home Depot and they work quite nicely. You could just try out the Home Deopt ones and if you don't like them the experiment only cost you 6 bucks.

Steve420

Haha...you and I are on the same page Sammy. I went out to HomeDepot this evening and picked up a couple 9w CFLs. I chose the "Daylight" version. I figured if I didn't like them, I could just use them around the house, but......

All I can say is WOW...what an amazing difference. The best $6.57 I've spent in a while

Emory

I agree about swapping out for daylight CFLs being a good investment. Really improved my tanks. I'll be doing CFLs from now on unless something even better comes along.

Steve420

I definitely agree with you Emory. I went out and picked up replacement CFLs for my 55 today (the ones yesterday were for the 10g). Went to Menards this time and got a 4 pack of 14w on sale for 5.99.

It seems to be a good cost effective solution until i can save some $$ and get new lights.

SammyJ

The picture is a 10 gallon lit by 2 daylight 9w CFL bulbs. Its hard to argue with results this good.

Attached Images

IMG_0067.JPG (405.4 KB, 10 views)

Steve420

Looks good Sammy. Even my wife commented that the new bulbs totally changed the look of the tank.

It also helps with taking pictures. The brighter light made things look much better in my cheap-o digi cam. If the darn batteries didn't die last night, I would have loaded up some pics.