Light Help

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mitche8359

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
1,182
Location
Columbus Ohio USA
First off, I need a new hood for the tank ASAP. The Perfecto hood that I had has cracked and keeps falling into the tank, just the lid part. Plus the starter has gone out on the other hood, I have two hoods for the 55 gallon.

I want to get some low light plants, like java moss. It's been suggested that 1 watt per gallon is enough. The hoods have 2 bulbs at 15 watts which is 30 watts, a far cry from the 55 watt minimum.

I can't find any information on the highest watt bulb that I can put in these hoods. The bulbs are 18". I looked at the lfs and they only have different temperature 18" bulbs with the wattage all being 15 watts. I found a new 48" hood that I thought would solve my problem. That hood only holds one 48" bulb. The highest watt bulb I could find was a 40 watt bulb which gets me nowhere. Once again the packaging didn't state the highest watt bulb that the fixture could handle.

1. Does anyone know the highest watt bulbs that these fictures can handle? I could look on the ballast but that means taking apart the light and since I'm in a lazy mood....

2. For those of you that have 2+ watts per gallon, how are you lighting the tank? Is there another brand of hoods? Build your own? I'm thinking of building my own hood/canopy but would rather wait until late winter when it warms up a little.

I looked around on the web and can't find another manufacturer of hoods.
 
Check out www.ahsupply.com for lighting. Here is a link to their 36/55 watt bright kit pages. http://www.ahsupply.com/36-55w.htm I have ordered from them before and, so far, have been very happy with their products and service. You could get a 2x55w bright kit which will give you 44" of lighting. That should give excellent coverage on a 48" tank. It will also give you 110 watts of light...PC light at that which is BRIGHT! You may be able to retro these bulbs into your existing hoods and, later, when you build a canopy, install them in it. Just a thought.
Logan J
 
I would agree its really hard to find good lighting seems most floresent kits out there are low lighting,
mine is and i was thinking about adding a balast system to it but still wouldn't be enough,
I did however find out i could order a new canopy with enough light but one problem
it doesn't fit my tank. :?
I'm thinking of looking for somebody to buy my cover the fixture is 30" so maybe somebody will be interested???

i'm starting to look off provence now so i hope that i will have luck :wink:
 
these bulbs

I took a look at the site. Looks like what I need. My question is do you then have to keep buying the bulbs from this supplier? I haven't seen that type of bulb before locally or on the web. Have you found other places on the web that sell the bulbs?

Not sure what you mean by PC?

Do you have a recommendation for the color temp that I would need?
 
Thanks logan for the links. I ordered the 2x55 kit tonight. Looked around for bulbs and couldn't find the 55w bulbs in the 5000k temperature anywhere else. I decided to go ahead and order them from A H Supply and found them out of stock because they are the only importers of them in North America. That's what the sight said. I can't wait til mid of February so I got some of the 6400K temp bulbs. I might try to pick up the 5000k bulbs later on.

Forgot to mention that I told a friend at work about the light systems and he liked them enough that he got the 96 watt kit for his 125g tank.
 
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