Light For Planted Aquarium

I was looking for a cheaper alternative for lighting a planted tank, and after looking through some posts here and on the planted tank forum I came across cfl bulbs. 23-26 watt bulbs seemed to work. The only place around here that carried cfl bulbs was a tractor supply and they only had two types. I bought the daylight bulb and its 6500k with 40 watts. Will this work for a 20 gallon tall with amazon swords? My 29 gallon produced so many runners I need to move them to my "no light" tanks and I just don't have the kind of money right now to upgrade the lights to the real deal.

 

HI there!

I actually did some "light" research into this lol. It most certainly can work given how you orient the light over the tank. It looks like you get more PAR value depending on the bulb orientation (horizontal or vertical), reflector, and distance from the light to the substrate. Will the fixture have a reflector?

 

HI there!

I actually did some "light" research into this lol. It most certainly can work given how you orient the light over the tank. It looks like you get more PAR value depending on the bulb orientation (horizontal or vertical), reflector, and distance from the light to the substrate. Will the fixture have a reflector?

The bulb is in a work shop reflector and is going to be over the tank vertically. The substrate is about a foot and a half away from the bulb, but the actual plants are only a foot away.

 

The bulb is in a work shop reflector and is going to be over the tank vertically. The substrate is about a foot and a half away from the bulb, but the actual plants are only a foot away.

Oh yeah, then that should provide good PAR for the swords. They are heavy root feeders so root tabs are a good option too.

 

Alright, thank you!