Using halogen lighting

[Jaybird]

I'm kind of frustrated with my lighting setup. I have a flourescent fixture that I got from Home Depot that holds two tubes, and one that came with my tank that holds one tube. I end up, between the three bulbs, with a total WPG of 1.244. I have not seen any bulbs with higher than 32W or 48W at my LFS.

These two units on top of the aquarium glass are always in the way when I am trying to do PWCs or feed the fish.

Would stringing halogen lights across the top of the tank work instead? I should get a lot hight WPG. I'm thinking of those halogen lighting things from IKEA

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stor...15&categoryId=15935&chosenPartNumber=40053973

I'm not sure how they would be for plants or if they would get too hot.

Any ideas?

 

[Thebluyak]

they would get hot, you can get a compact flour fixture, or if you want to spend money you can be a metal halide fixture. I would really think they would heat the water up tremendosly if they are anything like the desk lamps, one melted my laptop screen from about 7 inches above it. So imagine what that would do to water over the course of 9 hours

 

[mr funktastic]

what size of tank are u trying to light up? what is your target WPG? u can make a diy hood very easily and it will give u whatever desired lighting u want. tell us what u want and we can help u better.

 

[rkilling1]

Would stringing halogen lights across the top of the tank work instead? I should get a lot hight WPG. I'm thinking of those halogen lighting things from IKEA

here is a thread that talks about using halogen lighting for planted tanks:

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/viewtopic.php?t=85590

>WHAT ARE THE SPECTRAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HALOGEN LIGHTS?

It is very yellow, low color temperature, mid 3k range at best.
It isn't ideal, by anyone's definition. The halogen floods are
OK at growing algae.

People have done this before, it just does not work out well.
It isn't good for the animals, it isn't good for your pocketbook.
Metal halide and electronic fluorescent look expensive from the front end,
but they are the only way to go if you plan on keeping the tank for
more than a couple of months.

from http://www.thekrib.com/Lights/halogen.html

 

[jsoong]

Would stringing halogen lights across the top of the tank work instead? I should get a lot hight WPG.

Don't be fooled by the high Watts you get with halogens ..... They put out a fraction of the light of a fluorescent per Watt (maybe 10-20% or so). Most of the watts in a halogen fixture ends up as heat.

Having a lot of Watts under the hood does not equal having a lot of light that plants can use. The wpg rule is meant for NO fluorescent. If you use other light source, you'll have to adjust the wpg for the (in)effeciency factor. You'd need something like 10 wpg of halogens just to get to the same light level you are having now (and you'd be cooking your fish!).

 

[Thebluyak]

hmm fried fish, I love flounder : )

 

[malkore]

halogen is terribly inefficient for the watts needed to produce lumens.

very hot.

not a very good plant spectrum.

I had a 50w halogen over a 15gal tank, and was able to keep java fern alive, but not really growing.

java fern will almost survive with any lighting though, so its not fair to use it as an example.