lighting steup ok???

[bluefire]

today i just finished building the hood for my 39gal
i put two globes in it:
11 watt energy saver = to a 60 watt bulb each
they are both 5000k

the plants in the tank are:
a lizards tail
2 corkscrew vals
2 vals
2 unknown plants( fast growing stem plants about 18" tall)

will the above light setup be enough for may plants?????????

 

[savga]

A planted tank should have about 2 watts per gallon to support plant growth. I'm not 100% positive, but I think you need to go by the power rating of the flourescent bulb (11 watts) not its incandescent equivalent. So you 22 wats for 39 gal = 0.56 WPG. That amount of light will not be enough for even low light plants which need about 1 WPG.

 

[Mr Burns]

bluefire, do you have any pictures of your completed hood? i would love to see the contruction...

 

[bluefire]

sorry i got no pics

here is the type of globes that i have put in it
http://www.ergon.com.au/products/product.asp?catalog_name=Ergon+Products&product_id=CFLCP

its not the same brand but it is the same globe except the one i have is natural, which is the same colour as sunlight and doesn't give off the yellowy colour

 

[malkore]

Blue,
the link doesn't work.
savga is right though, you have 11watt bulbs which are the equivalent of 60 watt 'normal' bulbs. Remember that a watt is how much power the bulb uses, not a measure of how much light is produced. These globes are just more efficient at converting watts to lumens (light output).

 

[bluefire]

ok then malkore that seems right, but how many lumens would i need????

 

[malkore]

No one's ever determined the number of lumens, at least to my knowledge.
Basically, the problem is that one 20watt bulb might have 300 lumens, but another brand might have 350 lumens.

As confusing as it sounds, we care about lumens, but go by wattage amounts when determing a low, medium, or high light tank.