I'm setting up a 55. The only lights I have are the 15w fluorescents that come with the basic setup.
I have a wooden canopy to work with. I was in home depot today looking for ideas. Our HD is next door to a petsmart. At the petsmart I can get a 28 watt 48" t5 fixture with a bulb for 70 dollars. At the HD I can get a 28 watt 48" t5 fixture with a bulb for 29 dollars. Now the one they had up on the display didn't look all that bright and it was pretty yellowish, I realize the bulb that comes with the home depot light will probably not be any good for plants and will be replaced.
So would the Home Depot fixture not be as bright as the "aquarium" fixture if they had the same bulbs in them? They are small enough I could easily put 3 or 4 of them in the canopy.
I was also looking at putting 3 or 4 27 watt spiral cfl's with reflectors in there. (Instead of the t5's, they wouldn't all fit).
I don't want to spend 3 or 4 hundred bucks on lights. I just want to be able to have a decent choice of live plants I can grow, basic easier stuff like java moss, wisteria, cabomba and such. Just don't want to be too limited by low light.
So which way should I go?
EDIT: Well on second thought, the canopy is 13" deep and the reflectors for the spiral cfl's are 8" round. I might be able to fit 2 of the strip fixtures and 4 of the cfl's between them. That would be 56 watts of t5 lights and around 100 watts of cfl's. I think that sounds pretty good for a 55???
I have a wooden canopy to work with. I was in home depot today looking for ideas. Our HD is next door to a petsmart. At the petsmart I can get a 28 watt 48" t5 fixture with a bulb for 70 dollars. At the HD I can get a 28 watt 48" t5 fixture with a bulb for 29 dollars. Now the one they had up on the display didn't look all that bright and it was pretty yellowish, I realize the bulb that comes with the home depot light will probably not be any good for plants and will be replaced.
So would the Home Depot fixture not be as bright as the "aquarium" fixture if they had the same bulbs in them? They are small enough I could easily put 3 or 4 of them in the canopy.
I was also looking at putting 3 or 4 27 watt spiral cfl's with reflectors in there. (Instead of the t5's, they wouldn't all fit).
I don't want to spend 3 or 4 hundred bucks on lights. I just want to be able to have a decent choice of live plants I can grow, basic easier stuff like java moss, wisteria, cabomba and such. Just don't want to be too limited by low light.
So which way should I go?
EDIT: Well on second thought, the canopy is 13" deep and the reflectors for the spiral cfl's are 8" round. I might be able to fit 2 of the strip fixtures and 4 of the cfl's between them. That would be 56 watts of t5 lights and around 100 watts of cfl's. I think that sounds pretty good for a 55???
but I'm not a lighting Guru. I've only been using CFLs on my small tanks. I just got my first LED fixture. But I'm a low tech type.
