what type of bulb in a desk lamp

If you get one of the screw-in compact fluorescent bulbs, I would suggest something in the 20 watt range. They will say something like 75 watt, but that is just an equivalence to incandescent bulbs.

Also, I would choose the "daylight" flavor, which emit a nice white light. The color temperature of them is somewhere between 5000 and 6700 Kelvin.

So the bulb itself says 75 watts on the box? How do I know which lamp unit to get? Do I look for one that already has a 20 watt bulb in it that I can replace, or what? For example, will that "75 watt" cf bulb work in a desk lamp that came with a 13 watt lamp inside?

Make sure it is a lamp that will fit normal screw in light bulbs. They usually say 60 watt max on them, but that is for incandescent bulbs.

The bulbs says something like 75 watt equivalent using 20 watts of electricity. Last time I was at Walmart they had a large display of screw in CF bulbs.

So if it says 60 watt max, can I still use the 75 watt equivalent CF bulb?

likwid said:

So if it says 60 watt max, can I still use the 75 watt equivalent CF bulb?

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exactly, the fixture would only be using 20 watts of electricity

I just bought a cool white 23 watt bulb that does 100 watts. Is this overkill for a 5 gallon tank?

Should be fine for a medium to semi-high light tank.

Wattage should be fine. If I remember correctly, cool white is something like 4100K. Not unusable, but personally I prefer a "whiter" light, 5000K and above.