What kind of bulb should i buy?

[Big Ben]

Hi I'm looking to add 1 or 2 live plants to my 48 gal tank. I currently have an 18" fluorescent lamp that needs to be replaced. I was just wondering what a good brand of lamp would be good for output. I'm looking to get plants that don't require too much maintenance.

I have another lamp that is the screw in bulb type which sucks, cause u cant put anything but incadescent or crappy flurescent bulbs in them. I have 2 compact fluorescent lights in this lamp, but the bulbs are meant for regular house use. Is there any compact fluorescent designed for aquariums that screw in?

I have a jack dempsey, greenterror, 2 severims and a pink convict in the tank, so something suitable to them would be good. I only have some java fern growing on some driftwood at the moment. I don't use co2 and i'm looking for something that wouldnt require that, but if need be i would start my own c02.

Thanks,
Ben

 

[rkilling1]

as far as the screw-ins go, i recently purchased two 25 w bulbs from walmart for 5 bucks each. they are 6500K spectrum. the only problem is they are not very efficient for aquariums as they have a lot of loss due to restrike.

 

[Zezmo]

I have a jack dempsey, greenterror, 2 severims and a pink convict in the tank, so something suitable to them would be good. I only have some java fern growing on some driftwood at the moment.

I think with those fish you may be limited to java fern, and maybe an anubias.

 

[Big Ben]

anubias, does it need alot of light? would one 18" tube be good enough?

 

[Purrbox]

Anubias, Crypts, Java Fern, and Java Moss are all plants recommended for low light tanks.

 

[jbarr]

On the topic of screw-in bubls, a friend of mine donated to me her old tank and the top of her 15 gal. tank uses screw-ins. I replaced the bulbs with some fluorescent (as I want to begin planting), but the thing is, they're well over 100 watts each.

I was wondering, is there such thing as TOO MUCH light? What are the affects?

 

[Purrbox]

If they're Compact Flourescents, then the are not over 100 Watts each. They just give off the equivalant amount of light to a 100 Watt (or whatever the actual wattage listed is) Incadescent bulb. Incadescent bulbs put out more heat than Compact Flourescents, which is why the Compact Flourescents are so much more efficient. This is also why Incadescents are pretty much worthless for plant growth. You need to base the wattage of the bulbs off of the actual wattage for the bulb, not the equivalent Incadescent wattage.