I was PMed recently about my lighting setup after seeing one of my pictures on the forum. I guess not much attention has been given to the clamp shop-light approach so this thread is simply to show what can be done with them. I know many people may know about this, and I am not taking credit for the original idea, just wanted to share a cheap, effective method of lighting a planted tank.
Ok, here's a shot of my tank before we start-
For my tank I decided on three 9 inch clamp on lights from home depot. These are super cheap-usually around 6-10 bucks each. I found them in one of the electrical isles, not the lighting isle, as they are intended as work lamps.
The great thing about this is it accepts cfl bulbs with the normal light bulb socket. I went with 5000K 19w bulbs because I couldn't find any 6500's. Once I find them I'll make the switch though.
There are a lot of options with this method, such as hanging them from one pipe of pvc, and wiring all three together, or as I did, just sit them on top and use a short extension cord to plug all 3 into a timer. Once I'm done with my wasser-controller I'll set these up to come on and off one after another to mimic sun rise and sun set.
Hope this may help some of you who don't want to spend lot of money on lighting,
Matt
Ok, here's a shot of my tank before we start-
For my tank I decided on three 9 inch clamp on lights from home depot. These are super cheap-usually around 6-10 bucks each. I found them in one of the electrical isles, not the lighting isle, as they are intended as work lamps.
The great thing about this is it accepts cfl bulbs with the normal light bulb socket. I went with 5000K 19w bulbs because I couldn't find any 6500's. Once I find them I'll make the switch though.
There are a lot of options with this method, such as hanging them from one pipe of pvc, and wiring all three together, or as I did, just sit them on top and use a short extension cord to plug all 3 into a timer. Once I'm done with my wasser-controller I'll set these up to come on and off one after another to mimic sun rise and sun set.
Hope this may help some of you who don't want to spend lot of money on lighting,
Matt