Enough? Not Enough? Help!

[McCool]

So i have a 55gal 4ft tank. I'm looking to do live plants. Nothing crazy, Low to low end moderate plants will do just fine. No Co2, but weekly ferts. Also getting a power head to move the water around.
I'm going to be taking the light hoods off my moms tank since i don't have any. They are 24" each and hold a single light. Pretty simple. I couldn't tell you the wattage of the bulbs because its still hooked up to the tank, but I'm sure I'll have to replace them. What kind of bulb will i need? Is it even possible to have plants with this setup? I literally know nothing about lights. I know plants pretty well, but lights are foreign. If someone could give me the kind of bulbs i will need, or if it would even work, I'd really appreciate it. I'm kind of lost right now!

 

[Chad]

The wattage is important to know. It's also important to know how deep the tank is. Light has what we call PAR which is the light that can be used in photosynthesis. This is reduced at depth.

 

[DrRob]

Measure the bulbs. At a guess, they're what's called T8, which should be 1 inch in diameter, they could be T5's which are 5/8's of an inch.

Once you know what bulb and the length, go for something in the cool colour spectrum, or better still a daylight bulb and make sure that you don't go over the driver wattage (it'll be written on it).

You're going to be looking at low light plants on this set up.

 

[McCool]

The reason I can't measure at the moment is because they are currently hooked up to another working tank, and the way its set up its going to be hard to remove them. Just wanted to know If what I wanted was possible before I troubled with dismantling it. Guess I'll go for it and see what happens. I'll come back with the measurements once later.

 

[watertown28]

You could get a shop light at the store for 10 bucks about and they take T8's. I put foil around the thing too. looks kinda gheto but gets the job done for me lol.