lighting for 10 gallon help

[cee219]

I have a ten gallon aquarium with sea chem fluorite gravel. Decided I was going to have some live plants for my dwarf puffers when I get them . I've only found it's hard to do plants in such a small tank when you're new. I can't rememebr the names of the plants I got unfortunately . They all seemed to need brighter-moderate lights.

My concern is lighting... I dont' really know what to do. I have 25 W bulbs that I think are tungsten or something, but just learned flourescent is better because of the spectrum. But I can't find any flourescent lights to fit into my hood? It was a petsmart hood.

can anyone help a hopeless plant newbie?

 

[Purrbox]

If the bulbs screw into the fixture, then they are incadescent bulbs. You can get screw in compact flourescents that will work with that fixture. Depending on what you want to grow and whether you want to start messing with ferts, you could use anything from a pair of 10 watt bulbs to a pair of 25watt bulbs. The U shaped ones work better than the spiral ones, since there is less light lost to restrike (light not escaping the bulb because it hits and is absorbed by another part of the bulb).

 

[cee219]

thank you! the people at the petstore tend to confuse me and I tend to not fully trust them. Mostly because I seem to get conflicting advice from them. The whole undergravel filter "to use or not to use" was enough petstore advice for me.

Iowa salute.