Incandecent lighing

dragonfish4life

If you want to use incandecent lighing for plant growth you'll need 8 watts per gallon for low light plants..
But you might find that 12 - 15 watts might be needed, as for any other plants, incandecent lighing wount do..

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so min of 8 but 12 - 15 watts would be better..


But I have seen lots of light that just plug into a normal socket that is 6500K, you might look at getting some of those

well i would buy that but... look at the picture i would need 4 of thoughs


sorry i used your pic. and i didnt crop it

The spectrum from that lamp is very peaky, if that is what I am seeing on the side of the box, looks more like a marine lamp, which are much bluer, then a planted tank spectrum. The blue end is very strong, but the other peak looks to be in the green/yellow area where chlorophyll reflect, (that's why plants look green), rather than the red.

I have a chlorophyll absorbtion chart on my web site here, unfortunately I had to stretch the chlorophyll graph to match the visible graph. As you can see the plant will not use this green/yellow light.

Lateral Line said:

The spectrum from that lamp is very peaky, if that is what I am seeing on the side of the box, looks more like a marine lamp, which are much bluer, then a planted tank spectrum. The blue end is very strong, but the other peak looks to be in the green/yellow area where chlorophyll reflect, (that's why plants look green), rather than the red.

I have a chlorophyll absorbtion chart on my web site here, unfortunately I had to stretch the chlorophyll graph to match the visible graph. As you can see the plant will not use this green/yellow light.

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hu? so will that work? with just two of thoughs?

i didnt quite get that, oh well

I've found at the depot 23W CPF's in a daylight spectrum. Two of these and you would be set for most any plant. Here in Canada they're something like $12-$15. They are the spiral type, so they are a bit wider but they should fit anywhere a regular household lightbulb will fit. Right now I use the regular household 23W CPF's that are cheaper @ $6ea. I noticed right away that compared to my powerglo's that they are a much different spectrum. It gives the aquarium an almost yellowish glow. It looks really cool, but I plan on gradually phasing the 6 of these out one-by-one in favour of the 23W daylight spectrum CPF.

Colin

Colin_BC I also have a lot of the normal 20W CPF's but being 2700K it is of no use for my plants, and in my betta tank it only grows brown algae, and that is 20watts on a 5Gallon.

I have seen 4000K but localy I cant find any higher than that, execpt at the LFS but then they are only 10watts 6500K.

well colin did you see that link i put up, do you think that will be ok?

here is is again... or not the link didnt work... anyways it is...

27W
1750 lunems
but i wold buy two so it would be 54W and 3500 lunems do you think this would be ok over a 20G