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Lighting HELP !!!

691 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  gheitman
OK first off I want to say I am glad for this forum.. I have been lerking around here for a few days.. and figured I would go ahead and register...
so I have Questions...
I own 10 gallon
30 gallon
75 gallon
120 gallon


I have all live plants in my tanks... but I know that technology had made a vast improvement in the Lighting catagory.

I went to the LFS and bought 2 48inch long lights by FLORA SUN
this was the only bulbs they had for Plants..
I swear I have been so MAD at the system of lighting.....
So enough of my rant..... ( lol )
The bulb I bought has 5000K its noted on the box as HIGH INTENSITY
but from what I have read for HIGH INTENSITY it should be around
6500K
and then there is the WATT's THE BULBS are only 32 Watts. ea.
I SWEAR.. WALMART sells a bulb for plants and its only 7 bucks and its 40 watts ( but they dont give the Kelvin # ) I bought it anyways and the color is very YELLOW looking... were as the FLORA SUN are very Blueish White color.. ( Bright ).
SO Please advise me as to what would be the best The top of my tank has Glass lids and 2 light fixures.. 1 being with 2 bulbs and the other only 1.
Thanks guys..

Ron
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Which tank is this for?

Color temperature is not the same as light output.

Either of the bulbs you have should work fine. If the flora sun bulbs look nicer, use them. That brand is sold as 32W bulbs instead of 40W. I don't know if there is actually any difference; standard 4 foot T8 bulbs are 32W, but most aquarium T8 bulbs are 40W.

6500k daylight bulbs from Lowes are $7 for 2, they look good and should work fine if you don't want to spend 4x as much in the future at the fish store.
I use the Flora Sun bulbs on several of my tanks (4 10g and 2 20g long) that have the standard fluorescent light fixtures (not PC, T5NO, etc.). I find that they work well for plants that don't require a lot of light (such as Java moss, Java ferns, many Anubias and Cryptocorynes). I wouldn't recommend getting any plants that require medium or higher light intensities though.
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