Light bulbs

[dennysfishroom]

Let's talk about light bulbs. I'm thinking about putting some light on my tanks per Allen Wood. I started looking at bulbs and now I'm confused.

100 watt inc. = 1450 lumens
13 watt CF = 800 lumens
13 watt (?) LED = 50 lumens

Is this a rating we have to be concerned about? Also, is one light bulb in a 4' strip enough to light a 4' tank? At least enough to grow plants. What do our local experts think about this?

Denny

[Jackielee]

I have a couple screw in 13 watt compact flour. on a 30 gallon cube and a 46 bow front and the plants are growing fine for me. I used the higher watt compact flour. for some time and maybe got a little more color or growth out of the plants but I am happy with the new rigs. Just my experience.

A single bulb on a 4 ft. tank will grow some plants but two are better. If you have the fixtures go for it. If not buy a couple brooder light fixtures and some 13 wall bulbs and try that.

The other issue in growing many plants is good gravel and good gravel depth. I like 2 to 3 inches of gravel and I try to mix in about of 1/3 of the volume in the gravel with aquatic plant soil. just what i do. Planted tanks are a lot like reef tanks in that 13 people do them 13 different ways.



Jack

[mewickham]

It depends on what kind of plants you want to grow. Anubias, Java fern, and Java moss do well with very little light. Hornwort, vallisneria, and anacharis are hardy enough to do okay with a bit more (though the bunch plants grow spindly, rather than lush). If you want red plants, you want lots of light.

The general rule for fluorescent lights is 2-5 watts per gallon, with deeper tanks more likely to need the high end of that scale. I've seen 55s do well with two 4' fluorescent bulbs, though more would be better. If you just want to see the fish, just add enough light to do so.

The lumens are actually more important than the watts. So you might want to look up the lumens of a standard aquarium bulb and use that as a basis for you computations.

[snakeskinner]

there will be a light bulb expert (and I mean expert) at the COMAS "CRASE" convention this coming weekend in OKC. there's more information linked on our forum at www.theokaa.org It is a marine convention but I've seen this guy's talk before and he actually has a lab set up where he can compare every bulb side by side and measure lumens, spectrum, etc. I learned more in that talk about lights than you can absorb on the entire internet probably. If you can make it, it is definitely worth just seeing him.

Mike is right, watts per gallon has been a rule followed for many years. Unfortunately it's about as accurate as the "1 inch of fish per gallon" rule that was labeled for fish long ago and we all know you can't put a 48" red-tailed catfish in a 55 gallon tank. Watts refer to the power consumption and tell you nothing about the output as you can see from the 3 samples you listed. Lumens and temperature are the main thing you need to look at when you're looking for a plant light. If you only have fish (and even some of the easy plants like Mike listed) you just find a light that you are comfortable with. as for plants, I've heard the LED's don't work well (same goes for a reef tank). LED's are great lights for people but they don't have any good output for plants and animals that actually need the light to survive (at least that's the experiences I've been hearing from people who've used them). My biggest problem with LED is that they are a focused light which requires really elaborate reflectors to make them work halfway descent for an aquarium. I don't think the LED aquarium lights are going to stay longterm because of this. The best bang for the buck right now is T-5's. I recently picked up a "wave point" setup for my 30 tall (24" tank) and I am very pleased. It is high quality and the output is great.

If you're very handy, you can build your own lights fairly cheap. I've done two DIY projects with lights. My first was a setup for my 55 gallon display tank in my living room. I wanted to build a hood to match the stand and didn't want to spend a ton of money. I ended up using the model off of plantedtank.com and did ODNO lighting which stands for Overdriven Normal Output. Basically all you do is take a ballast meant for 2 (or 4) bulbs and make it run 1 (or 2) bulbs by doubling up the wires to each bulb. To do this, you must use an electronic ballast. I used a 4x48" ballast from the local light supply store (I think they might even sell them at Home Depot and Lowe's now) and ran two 48" T-8 bulbs. The output is noticeably more than a standard double 48" lamp. A lot of the better lights tout a high tech reflector. there's a lot of information out there on reflectors and the biggest thing is that any light emitting any direction but down (or slightly down) is wasted. A good reflector can reflect the light back into the water. Good reflectors are expensive and I was doing this on the cheap. I ended up using a piece of galvanized flashing and used some 2x4's to clamp around it and break it over where I wanted it so that there are points coming off the reflector directly above each bulb and then another piece bent out on each side of the bulbs to try and bounce some of the light back downwards. I'm not sure how good my design is but it didn't cost much.

my other setup was more recent. I have a stand I built that I've put different tanks on that it wasn't designed for so there's little room above the tanks. I tried several different types of "slim" lighting but nothing lasted and most of those types of lights you can't buy replacement bulbs for. I finally bought a Workhorse ballast from ballastwise.com and used some 1" aluminum angle from Home Depot to mount some T-5 end caps onto and I have 4x48" T-5 HO bulbs on them and they work awesome. I have another system like this I need to get setup but havn't had time. I initially wanted to find something to utilize the standard 48" T-5 (non HO) bulbs they sell at Home Depot but I've yet to find a light that uses these (I need to find out what they heck they carry those for because nobody has a ballast or a fixture that I've found).


hope this gives you a little help.....Kyle

[dennysfishroom]

Not sure if I really care a whole lot about the plants, but just thought if they grew it would be a bonus. I'm going to try it out in the garage first before I think about trying it in the fishroom. Denny

[mewickham]

People often discuss using plastic rain guttering to create the houseing for DIY fluorescent light units. One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that you can take regular aluminum foil and glue it to the inside to make a nice reflector. Some of that spray adhesive in a can would probably work to adhere it the rain guttering.

[snakeskinner]

I see that too but they must have found a better alternative than I did. I bought some white plastic guttering (I believe from Home Depot) and used it to make a light housing over a 29. My problem is the stuff was so flimsy, it didn't do much good other than encase the light so it didn't shine around the room. I suspect that if a larger light were placed inside the stuff, it would get very brittle before long and shatter when touched. I had some slim cabinet lights mounted inside (actually I suspended it with fishing string inside) so there wasn't much heat generated. I just took it off this last week when my last cabinet light burned out (they make the bulbs odd-sized so you can't replace them).

the 4 foot shop lights are by-far the cheapest and most effective method as long as you have the room for them. I suggest trying to find some with electronic ballasts (much less weight and more adaptable).

I havn't tried the aluminum foil reflector although I did look into using some aluminum insulation tape when I was going to mount the T-5 lights but found the aluminum angle instead. KYle

[dennysfishroom]

I decided to price the components for Allen Wood's light fixtures today. The gutter comes in 10' lengths for around $6.50. The end caps were $2.60@. I couldn't even find the lamp holders. Maybe Corey can find some of the ones similar to what used to be in the old Incandescent light fixtures. Both single and double. I didn't check on cords at the dollar store. It looks like they would end up costing about twice what Allen said. It must have been quite awhile since he built any, although it's still cheaper than buying them. I'll keep looking. Denny

[sskruzr]

I saw some of these double and single sockets at Habitat for Humanity Friday. If somebody wants some, let me know and I'll pick some up this week.