Growing Bulbs

a person i know swears by power glos even though their 18,000K, they have peaks in the blue and red spectrum. i use 6700K life glos and they're awesome. they're really expensive though.

i would go with anything around 6500K. or a power glo. another good bulb for plants is 9325K distrubuted by all-glass.

im pretty new to this whole thing but ive been messing around with plants and this is what ive seen. even with low light plants can do decent. not grow at alarming speeds but hang in there, grow a bit, and stay healthy. ive been using a GE plant and aquarium 24" bulb on a 29 gal tank. i have 3 hornworts, 2 crypts, and a red tiger lotus (which my girlfriend dropped in while i was lookin the other way). All of these plants have done well under the low watt, dim k bulb i have. the hornworts grow exremely fast yet the lower sections seem to lose a bit of color as i think the bulb doesnt maintain the intesity well enough. the crypts are going fine, no color loss and strong leaves. the lotus is the biggest surprise though... i told my girlfriend to wait till i had more light to put it in but she droppped it in anyways. i thought it would die for sure but it has grown and thrived. it doubled its size in just 2 weeks! its sprouted runners allready, its a deep red still. all of this is under the crap ge bulb. all the things ive read say the lotus needs high light but i dunno, mine is doing great with low light, some kents fert, and about 15ppm co2 injection. all this is in a tank that im still cycling!

just get what will work i say. 200$ on 3w per gal is pricy and do you really need the plants to grow so fast you have to trim every week?

6700K will be fine!

the problem about home depot bulbs is that they are most likely t-12s. IME, t-8s are much brighter than t-12s. i got a life glo (6700K) and i cant look at it for more than 5 seconds. and i got a home depot daylight deluxe(6500K) which i can stare at all day. it looks like my computer monitor, the white background on this page. so i returned it right away because when i turned it on and off, there was very little difference.


edit:
another reason why i returned the bulbs is because there's not that much difference between the price. the LFS bulb is around double the price of the home depot bulb. but the LFS bulb is only around 12 CND. imo, such dim lighting is not worth saving few bucks.

man mabye i should have you buy me bulbs. the LFS here is pricy! a 24" bulb of any sort is like 25$! and there all 15-20w. not much improvment on my GE bulb reALLY ID SAY. all the bulb set ups ive looked at online that i would like to have would run me like 125$ for the hood and bulb.

Allow me to second Chinaboy's recommendation for those 9325K bulbs. They're amazing. I switched from 6700K to 9325K a week ago and without a change in my fert regimen or CO2 levels, plants have started pearling again.

They're also called GE AquaRays. Dr's Foster & Smith carry them. The 24" bulb is $5.79

They look amazing, too. Look at how washed out the 6700K bulbs make the plants look on the right side of this pic. The left side is lit by the 9325K bulb...

GulfCstAquarian, beautiful aquarium!

However, i believe that tank lighting has a lot to do with personal preference.
I prefer the right side of your tank as far as lighting goes, just my opinion. I prefer a little more yellow tone in the light. Ive tried a 5000k bulb and thats a little too yellow. On up to the 10000 and thats way too sterile looking for me. The 6700 fits my taste fine.
How old are were your bulbs when you changed them. As you know, the bulbs intensity fades over time. maybe your plants were reacting to the increased light with the new bulb?

peace out,
ian