light fixture

[shayfish]

I bought a tank from a guy out of the paper several months ago and I have just started to set it up. I'm a little confused about some of the light set up he has (its all diy). Here's some pics. There is for 2 24" bulbs (40 watts of T5). The part in question is the smaller fixture in the front. I'm not familiar with these kinds of lights. They are like little halogens and I can't tell how much light I am going to get from them. It says max of 20 watts on the fixture, but I can't tell if that's per bulb or total. Also I'm not sure about the little holes under where the bulb goes in (see the last picture).

Basically I am wondering what the heck kind of lights these are and what they mean to my tank. The tank size is 33 gallons and I am trying to figure out what I will be able to do with this baby.

 

[Purrbox]

Just the flourescents will get you into medium low light. Halogens produce much more heat than ligth and like incadescents aren't very useful for your tank. You'll be able to grow a variety of plants with just the flourescents. Make sure to replace the bulbs if you haven't already and they are over 6-9 months old or you don't know their age.

If you don't mind getting into CO2 and want more plant options, I would recommend that you remove the halogen fixture and replace it with a second flourescent like the first. This would get you to at least medium high light, possibly even high. It would also be a good idea to either add a good reflector or paint the inside of the canopy white, so that more light makes it into the tank.

 

[SparKy697]

Can you tell me, on that small fixture is there room for a ballast in the compartment to the right of where the lamp would go? It seems too small for that actually but it's hard to tell from a picture. Does it mention anything about what lamp to use on any of those stickers that are on the fixture? What is the distance between those contacts?

 

[Burks]

With no kind of reflector, you aren't going to get near 40w of light in the tank. You'll be lucky to get 1 WPG.

 

[dapellegrini]

That lighting fixture in the front is very strange indeed. I don't even understand what I am looking at in that last picture there.

On the fluorescents... Those really do not look like T5's... Perhaps I am seeing them wrong but a T5 is 5/8" in diameter, compared to a T-12 which is 1.5" and a T-8 which is 1".

 

[SparKy697]

Just for the sake of conversation the number in the designation T(X) represents the number of eights of an inch.

T5 = 5/8"
T12 = 1 1/2"
T8 = 1"

dapellegrini lind of eluded to it but I thought I'd mention it for reference. Also, many lamps will have the T# printed near one end.

 

[shayfish]

My bad... they're T-12.

With just the flourescents I wouldn't quite make it to 1.5 wpg. These are the kinds of bulbs:

There are 9 inches between where each halogen would go. The sticker just says to reduce risk of fire use 20 watt max. That's about it. I am a little confused as to what the holes are under where the halogen bulbs go in. There is a protective glass cover for this fixture too. I don't know if there's room for a ballast. That last pic in my first post is a close up of one of the 2 bulbs in place.

 

[SparKy697]

Ahh I see. Those are the lamps we were looking at and not the contacts for a lamp as I thought.

Well two things come to mind. One is that these will not really provide anything helpful for your plants. They may add some warmth to your tank as far as color goes and that may only be pleasing to you.

Second is that if these operate anything like a traditional halogen lamp you may have a problem. Halogen lamps tend to run quite hot and touching them with your bare fingers will leave a bit of oil on the surface of the lamp. When these things get up to operating temperature, it is not uncommon to see a blister form right where you touched the lamp. From there life is not long for that lamp.

Honestly I think you would be better off scraping this fixture and maybe even the other one and going with something that will give you the light you are looking for.

 

[Burks]

With just the flourescents I wouldn't quite make it to 1.5 wpg.

As I said before, you won't even make 1WPG.

Just tossing light over a tank doesn't work. It needs to have some direction. That's why shop lights are frowned on and why AH Supply gets so many compliments on their reflectors. They work.

 

[dapellegrini]

I agree that those lights are probably useless if you want any kind of plants. Here is more info on Halogens, from a question I asked not long ago.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=92634

You should look at getting a retrokit for some T8's or CF's with good reflectors.

 

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

With just the flourescents I wouldn't quite make it to 1.5 wpg.

As I said before, you won't even make 1WPG.

Just tossing light over a tank doesn't work. It needs to have some direction. That's why shop lights are frowned on and why AH Supply gets so many compliments on their reflectors. They work.

Never had a problem with shop lights on my 75, in fact I was getting great growth.

I would not say they are frowned on at all..

 

[shayfish]

The guy I got this from was definitely a plant guy so I can't imaging that this setup is totally useless for plants. Maybe the halogens were just for a look he liked. I wish I'd asked more questions when I picked this tank up, but like I say that was months ago.

I can't afford to buy new fixtures, so I will scrap the halogens and try some low light plants with just the flourescents. Thanks everyone.

 

[redswi]

I agree with Wizzard....
Iv'e used shop lights in the past and always had good results...just today I took an old shop light and converted it to ODNO lighting, giving me 120w for my 55 gal project...