Should I Bring It Back?

[Piti]

Hello everyne.

I recently purchased a 37 kit by Top Fin. 3 days after the tank was set up the light was on the frits, so i brought the light back for an exchange. The vendor exchanged the bulb to a 20w aqua glo fluorescent tube, tested it, and we brought it home. They wrote off the tube and did the exchange.

We got it home and my wife and are were displeased with how dim the light seemed to be, so with a little more reaserch we read something alonge the lines of 1-3 watts per gallon of water - decor and gravel (sort of equation) and that leaves me with roughly 0.6-0.5 watts per gallon instead. Now should I not be happy with the vendor, return it with a polite letter and explain what we want, or should I be happy with the light that occupies the tank? Or what should I do with this topic.

 

[Piti]

Further research shows I can only get >20 watts for 24 inches of bulb. I still dont know if I'm happy or not because if what is said to be true about 1-3 watts per gallon, then I need a new hood (or something else??? Any suggestions???) Okay, well here's a start again...

 

[angelfishguy]

Id bring it back and get a refund

Anything between 1w to 1.5w per g is suitable you only need higher to keep some types of plants alive

 

[OldMan47]

No matter the brand or the spectrum, a 2 foot fluorescent tube is only going to be a 20 watt, and will only be that much if you have a T-12 tube. If you want more power input for a planted tank you will need to start looking at backfit kits like are offered by people like AHSupply. They sell backfit kits that you install in standard light strips. This is a picture of one of their kits installed in the hood of a 29 gallon tank.

As you may be able to tell, the lighting is a T-5 compact fluorescent fixture. It turns out to have about double the wattage that I could have had using standard fixtures and tubes. I installed it into my own hood in about 20 minutes using nothing more than typical handyman tools like a drill motor to make the holes in the hood for the new mounting. I hung the new ballast on the back of the plastic hood to keep it from causing a heat build up.

 

[Piti]

Yeah I looked into that and saw i couldnt find anything past 20watts. Is there a link to where I can go for specifics on lighting; I will look threw my plant book, it has details on what's good, but I dont even know the spectrum for my light (no box and couldnt find one online)

I really like your idea Old Man, is that kind of an attachment you put inside your cannopy? I know I can buy a new cannopy with 2+ bulb spots (and it would still be cheaper then returning the whole thing and building piece by piece) But my problem is, there seems to be only enough room for the solo light inside my cannopy!... I can't see how you cut or modified your kit there...

 

[OldMan47]

Vendors like AHSupply sell kits that fit nicely inside an existing reflector. They often supply their own mirror for your plastic reflector housing and the needed ballast and fittings to make it all work nicely. I have several light fixtures that I have modified in under 30 minutes to use much better than stock lighting. The kit works by removing the entire contents of your light strip and simply replacing those internal components with new ones. The picture shows a single 39 watt tube that I mounted in the space of the standard 20 watt tube over my 29 gallon tank. The light intensity, in terms of watts per gallon is still outside the range considered intense but it is enough to grow most common plants. The 1.34 WPG is misleading because the T-5 tubes involved produce light more comparable to almost 2 WPG by delivering the light more efficiently.