Aqua Glo Bulbs

[kneeo]

I have a 10 gallon tank that has a few live plants (java fern, sword, and a grassy type). I bought a used hood and light for the tank and it needed some bulbs. It said 25 watt max, so I went to PetSmart and bought 2 Aqua Glo bulbs. The sign for the Aqua Bulbs said it was good for plants. Well, when I cleaned up the hood and put the bulbs in, hardly any light shows and it's much darker than expected. The bulbs have a purple tint to them, but I can bearly see in the tank to admire the fish and plants.

Am I doing this right? 2 glo bulbs or should I mix with a clear? Im thinking of exchanging the bulbs for a some clear ones.

Any thoughts?

thanks.

 

[Teelie]

With light bulbs, you may not see all the spectrum that is released so while the bulbs look dim, they might be releasing the right type of light for the plants. The below is a response to a question from another forum several months ago that was useful to me.

To expand further.....
Color temperature is based on what the human eye sees. So anything under 5000K is going to look a bit yellower or redder to the eye and anything higher might look more blue to the eye. But like most things this is not always true. For example the "AquaGlo " bulb by Hagen looks purple and I think is said on the box it is 16000 Kelvin, This is actually a great plant bulb because it has high spectrum spikes in the red and blue zones. The GE 9325 bulb is also a great plant bulb because it has large wavelength peaks in the red, orange and blue spectrums.

For an example of a bulb that is not as great for plants ( but OK) is the Coralife 6700 bulb. This bulb has very large spectrum peaks in the yellow and green areas, with small peaks in the red and blue areas. This bulb looks bluer to the eye, but the peaks are just not as good.

Basicaly if I can tell you anything about choosing the proper bulbs, do not look so much at , lux, lumens, or CRI numbers. You can look at the Kelvin rating but that is not the whole picture since different colors can be used to come up with the same kelvin rating. Looking at the spectrum charts is probably the best way to choose a good bulb. Look for high peaks in the blues, reds and orange and lower peaks in the green and yellow spectrums. CRI or color rendering index can tell you how "full spectrum a bulb is because a higher CRI numer greater than 90 will tell you that the bulb is producing light close to sunlight which is a CRI of 100, but on the other hand the plants do not use some wavelengths so you do not really need a CRI that high.

 

[George Farmer]

Life-Glos are better, for colour rendition, intensity and plant growth. But they are normally more expensive.