Are these bulbs good?

[rhetor]

As per the advice of everyone here, i went on a CF screw in bulb quest!

Unfortunately the nearest Walmart is anything but near. So i went to Ace hardware, numerous grocery stores, etc. Could find nothing.

But then i went to home depot!

I got two of these:

n:vision daylight bulbs.
19watts per bulb (i have a 2 bulb fixture)
5500k
840 lumens
75w equivalent (this probably doesn't mean much)



5500k was the highest kelvin rating i could find. They shine white with a bluish tint. All the other CF screw ins i could find had a yellowish color to them.

These two bulbs are going over a 10 gallon tank. The fixture has been painted white, but i may line it with some polished sheet metal when i get the chance.

I am trying to grow what is available at the pet store. I have a few amazon swords, some grass called Kyoto (from petco) and another called Tropica Fern (microsorium pleropus). I just searched for the kyoto because it sounded so familiar, and of course it comes up as non aquatic! Its been in there for about 1 month though and seems to be growing and doing well. If it browns at all though i'll just remove it.

I went to the petstore with all these plants in mind that were low to medium light level, and of course they only have 3 types.

I do not have CO2, and don't plan on it for this tank. I do have fish though.

Do you guys think these plants will grow? Should i add any sort of fertilizer? I looked for ferts at the petstore and they didn't have any. Are there any household products i could use as ferts, like peat moss or something? I was thinking i could feed my fish some bananas or potatoe bits to get some potassium in there. What about a crushed up multi-vitamin? Just brainstorming here!


EDIT- took a pic with my cell phone... sorry about the quality. The best piece of driftwood is too dark to even see!

 

[JDogg]

are you bulbs the spiral type CF? if so you are loosing a lot of light to refraction :?

i would pick up root tabs for the swords, i like flourish tabs, put one under each sword and replace every few months (3-4 months)

as far as other ferts you might want to pick up nice trace mix (like flourish comprehensive) and dose that just after pwc

does your tap water contain any NO3 or PO4? at your low light you may not need to does much if anything.

if you want a little extra growth you can dose excel, but then you might need to start dosing other stuff...

 

[rhetor]

I am using city water and i treat it with a water stabilizer before adding it to the tank.

My test kit is down in CT with my big tank, and i'm at college in RI and have $zero to spend on another big kit. Although i would spend whatever i had to make my roommate turn his crappy music down

They are sprial lights. I couldn't find anything else. The only ones that were the U-shape were 2700-3000k. I do have two 3000k bulbs at 23w each but i figured these would be better.

I could go back to homedepot later and just build a new light fixture to fit 4 of these lights pretty easily. Do you think that will be necessary?


I see if the LFS down the road has any of those root tabs or excel. The Petco didn't, but i wouldn't really expect them to i guess.

Thanks for the help.