10 gal. hood

[Discomafia]

I'm planning on making a hood for my tank. How many bulbs will I be able to fit? I want at least 2, hope I can get away with 3. Also, what kind of ballast would I need to run those 18" bulbs? Something like this is what I have in mind, only the tri-chromatic ones, not the triplus in the link. Any help much appreciated.

 

[vidiots]

You might want to consider the mini compact bulbs cheap and easy. I put 2 of them into a standard 10Gal hood that took 2 incandecant bulbs. It is bright and beautiful. They are full spectrum bulbs. The bulbs fit into a standard incandecant light bulb socket, give off about 50watts of light each, but use only 10W of electricity. The bulbs only cost about $8 each. The details about them can be found at http/www.all-glass.com/ and they can be ordered online from http/www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/produc...id1=1843;pcid2=

The think I find odd is that you don't see them at any of the LFS. I've seen the same type of bulb at Home Depot and and at most supermarkets, but the ones sold there are not full spectrum and give off a more yellow appearing light.

 

[Discomafia]

Thanks for the reply! I was using these from Home Depot for a few months, and my plants were doing great... It did give off a yellow tint that I didn't really like, but my plants were doing well so I didn't mind. Then I found out that FW plants do the best with a Kelvin rating of 5000 to 6700 or something like that, so I bought the ones from AGA at Big Al's.

But then I started to get algae, pressumabaly because of the change in lighting... The white light was great, but my plants weren't doing as well. Do they really give off 50W of light each? Because when I was using the Home Depot bulbs that were giving off 15W each and were equivalent to a 60 watt standard bulb, my plants were really thriving.

Anyways, now I've switched back to the Home Depot ones and my plants are doing well again. That is the only thing I cannot get, because I did some research and found out that the K rating on those is only 2700K. Must be because they're = to a 60 watt standard bulb?

Which leads me to believe that intensity instead of temp. (kelvin) is more important for plants... If the AGA ones were really equal to 50 watts each, then I wouldn't have changed them... After all, they're of the appropriate K rating, 6500K... Do you have any plants in your tanks? How are they doing with the lighting you have in there now?

 

[Silly me]

2700K got nothing to do with the amount of light it gives off, but the color.. the lower the K value the more red the light will appear, the higher the k value the more blue, at 5500K the is about the whites color, but 6500K is about the same color as sun + blue sky reflection.

I have had great plant growth under normal shop light, 4000K lights but the watts per gallon rule doesn’t really help as I kept adding lights till I was happy with the plant growth.. it all ended up at close to 5wpg, I have now switched over to full spectrum lights as these becomes cheaper and more available locally, I now have 2.4wpg with the same if not better growth..

Also replacing a 15W 2700K bulb with a 15W 6400K bulb is increasing the useable light for plant 3+ times.. and could cause a algae breakout..

 

[Discomafia]

2700K got nothing to do with the amount of light it gives off, but the color.. the lower the K value the more red the light will appear, the higher the k value the more blue, at 5500K the is about the whites color, but 6500K is about the same color as sun + blue sky reflection. 

I have had great plant growth under normal shop light, 4000K lights but the watts per gallon rule doesn’t really help as I kept adding lights till I was happy with the plant growth.. it all ended up at close to 5wpg, I have now switched over to full spectrum lights as these becomes cheaper and more available locally, I now have 2.4wpg with the same if not better growth..

Also replacing a 15W 2700K bulb with a 15W 6400K bulb is increasing the useable light for plant 3+ times.. and could cause a algae breakout..

I never said that Kelvin has anything to do with amount of light produced... Kelvin is a unit of temperature, is it not? The kelvin rating has to do with the frequency of the light if I recall properly.

How was the colour of your 4000K shoplights? I am looking for a white tint, not the yellow one that lower K rated bulbs give off... And the bulbs that were 6500K were not 15W but 10W instead... Only the 2700K bulbs from Home Depot were 15W.

Does this still increase the useable light for plant 3+ times? And 20W of 6500K light is still only 2.0 wpg but the wpg rule doesn't work in smaller tanks, so I'm left with even less light. So how do you calculate the wpg in smaller tanks then? I'm planning on using the 6500K lights in my 5.5 gal newt tank once I get a hood for it...

Once again, any help on the set up for the lights (esp. ballasts and socket in which to plug in the lights) is much appreciated.