Strange light bulbs

[jimday1982]

Hey everyone. I came across this link the other day and decided to make a couple of the light setups. I was in Wal Mart last night and bought the CF bulbs, but I have a question. The bulbs look identical to the ones in that link, but they say they are for 60 watt applications but only use 15watts of actual electricity. I looked on the bulb itself and it says 15w with an output of 820 lumens. They are supposed to be some sort of energy saver bulb. I have a 44g aquarium and would like to grow live plants, so my question is, would 4 of these bulbs be ok for me? Thanks for your help!*celebrate

 

[luvfishies]

You have to go with what the bulb USES, so 4x15=60 total watts. I would try and get the ones that use 20-23watts and say they are the same as 75w-100w.

I use these lights on some tanks and the plants love it! BUT I do use the 23w ones.

Try and get as much light on there as possible as hex tanks are taller than the norm and require more light so that it can penetrate to the bottom.

 

[jimday1982]

Thanks for the reply. I just ran back up to wal mart and realized that I grabbed the wrong bulbls! I meant to get the 20w, but somehow I ended up with the 15w. Anyway, I exchanged them and now I'll be using 4 20w bulbs...that will put me just shy of 2watts/gallon. That should be good enough for me. Thanks again.*celebrate

 

[aznpanther98]

there are some better cf bulbs i've seen them at homedepot, not sure whats the wattae i think somewhere around 25-30watts =100 watt output, they're pretty bright and i'm usein one on my 10gal for over 8 months now and still makin my plants grow like crazy especially the vals, they're not the spiral shaped kind more like 4-5 u-shaped tubes not sure haven't looked under there for some time they cost somewhere around 15 bucks but IMO worth it and i just did same thing like that link did actually i got that idea from that site and modified it a bit with just one socket and now metal gutter overtime the white plastic gutter will get brown around the area where the bulbs were and the bulb i have kinda get hot and i put holes above the area where the lights for beter ventalation just becareful if u go with metal gutters i had a couple bandaids on my fingers from cutting it with tin snips (don't ask) lol i did the two bulbs for my 30 gal and it worked fine for me then got a pc lights for that one u don't have to buy that socket kit i know homedepot sells the double sockets by itself just like that one he's showin