Plant Lights

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

theotheragentm

Aquarium Advice Addict
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
2,254
How do plant light bulbs that you can pick up at Home Depot fair on smaller planted tank setups? Just curious.
 
Fluorescent or incandescent? I'd avoid incandescent bulbs as they'll put out too much heat. For fluorescent bulbs, as long as they are between 5500K and 10000K they will do fine. More important is getting enough wattage over a small tank...small tanks need more watts per gallon than larger tanks to equal the same effective lighting.
 
What I saw at Home Depot were incandescent plant lights. I just told my friend to stick one over his 40 gallon for his Java Moss/Java Fern. It was much cheaper and probably a decent option for the low light needs. I just have no proof that it's enough wattage for the plants. I would guess yes. As far as heat goes, on a big tank like that, it probably won't have too much effect. Plus the office temperature where the tank is kept is maintained pretty steadily.
 
I doubt that 1 bulb of any kind over a 40g would be sufficient. The bulb may be in the proper spectrum, but may not have enough output to reach the bottom of the tank, even if just growing java ferns/moss.
 
Back
Top Bottom