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Hi Everyone,


The other day I was in walmart and took a look at the lighting section. I saw the compact flourescent screw bulbs, and read that they were equivalent to 75w or so. I thought if i got 3 or 4 that would provide enough lighting and would be fairly easy to change when needed. My tank is a 55 gallon and i plan on having moderate planting.

Would the screw in bulbs work, or would the tubes be better?

My idea is to get halide light fixtures the metal bowl like reflectors, and mount them inside the hood on removable racks, and i'll have fans to keep it from overheating. Would that work or is the light to spotted, for a 55 gallon.

Whether it would work or not I don't know but the watt rating is not correct. That's their equivalent to incandescents but will not give you the correct watts per gallon rating. wpg is based on NO(normal output) fluorescents and for the most part holds true for compact fluorescents using their actual watts not the incandescent equivalents. The bulbs you saw are actually only around 20watts. A 20w pc bulb puts out as much light into a room as a 75w incandescent which is why incandescents aren't used to light tanks. They use aproximately 2/3rds of the electricity to produce heat and 1/3rd to produce light. The other problem I see is it would be hard to light the tank evenly with individual bulbs instead of long strips.

For the standard 55g tank, the best lighting and the most uniform are flourescent tubes. If you grow plants, you should have a red spectrum tube (for growing plants) and the mixed blue-red spectrum tube (all-around aquarium lighting)... oh, thats for freshwater.

Your tank would look best with those 4' flourescent tubes. My 55g has only one but it has a mirror-finished LIGHTING canopy, much more efficient than the normal rectangular wood canopy.

Hi,
The short answer is, "Yes" they would work. Many folks on
this site use them on smaller tanks that came with
incandescent bulbs. They switched to the screw in compact
flourscents and have very nice planted tanks.

The thing you have to be careful of is that you purchase
the correct ones. Purchase only ones that are labeled
DAYLIGHT or SUNLIGHT, the others are for reading and lack
the "glare" of the sun.
the Daylight/Sunlight bulbs are 6700K bulbs and are great
for planted tanks.

Now, for your 55 gallon tank, they are problematic.
The problem is that with a flourscent tube, you want the
light to stretch from one end of the tank to the other.
A like a 3 foot long T-12, or T-8 would. Compact flourscent
bulbs are only 22 to 24 inches long. That leaves a whole lot
of tank without a light directly over it. You can resolve
that problem by using a hood with two compact flourscent
bulbs end to end taking up the width of the tank.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Thanks,

Your input has helped me make my decision, I'll have to go back to the store and see what I can find.