Lighting fixture Question

[Ben K]

I bought a canopy set and I am having trouble determining how many watts the current bulb is or how many watts the canopy itself can take.

It's a "Perfect a Lite" made by Marineland for a 20G L.

Any help?

 

[zao]

Are you trying to find a replacement bulb? And dont know the wattage of the fixture it can handle?

 

[Ben K]

Yeah

I am getting equipment to set up a 2 wpg planted tank. I doubt the default (the bulb that came with it) bulb is sufficient enough for a 20G L tank, though it's hard to tell as I can't even tell how many watts the default bulb itself is.

 

[gheitman]

If it is a standard 30" fixture to designed to fit on the 20 gallon long (as well as the 29 gallon) tank with a single bulb it is probably a 20W lamp. The ballast in the fixture probably won't drive bulbs of any higher wattage unless you replace it. There are a number of plants IME that will grow under the amount of light you have including various crypts, dwarf rosette swords and several anubias.

 

[Ben K]

How would I go about replacing the ballast? I am assuming that's the small "fuse-like" thing that you can screw out, roughly the size of a jar a enamel paint for car models? Is there any way of telling how many watts my current ballast will handle?

 

[gheitman]

I've never tried it myself but I found a link to a thread that might help. It talks about over-driving normal fluorescent lamps (aka ODNO).

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/planted-tank-faq/175-cheap-lighting-odno.html