[jakeliquorblues]

I bought a 10g starter kit. I'm not sure exactly which one, but it's from Tetra and it has a 20" x 10" LED hood. The LED lights are not adequate for live plants. I would like to replace the LED hood with something better for real plants. Which would be the best hood for my needs? Are there even options out there?

 

[all4funwfish]

There are lots of options. Price is your biggest factor. LED pendants, single fluorescent, dual fluorescent, dual incandescent with CFL's, incandescent pendants with LED or CFL bulbs from home depot/lowes.... How much light do you want and how much do you want to spend? What kind of plants do you want?

This question has been beat to death... Search the forum and google search the topic. There are lots of options and tons of articles covering lighting a ten gallon tank.

 

[PlantedRich]

If you like a DIY project it is quite easy to build a simple wood box canopy to set on the tank top. That gives you space to mount any number of cheap CFL twisty bulbs that do fine for many plants. My first planted was a 20 with four CFL in the top.

 

[Raymond S.]

A full hood can be bought from any on-line or pet shop but you need the one/w the sockets for incandescent bulbs and just put CFL bulbs in there. the 13W ones are good @ 6500K.
If you don't "need" a hood then an inexpensive way to go is with a clamp on light from Home Depot that you hang over the tank. Can be spray painted black if you like.
You can put a bookshelf bracket on the wall over the tank for it and just hang it by the cord after removing the clamp. The same CFL bulb should be used in that.

 

[aja31]

There are a lot of options out there. Personally I prefer to keep my hood and my light separate. There are lots of cheap glass aquarium lids out there, just try amazon. For lights the choice is a lot more complicated. I would head over to the light section of the forum and read some of the stickies there. Personally I prefer LED's, I use Fugeray Planted+ lights on all my tanks and they are pretty great.