Using normal flourescent lights.

[Jellymolly44]

I mean like the cool white bulbs or other light bulbs for a planted aquarium. I'm gonna use cfl lights for my 30 gallon hexagon aquariums. I will use a 20 watt bulb that is equal to 75 watt bulbs. Turns out cfl lights are a lot different from the long tubed lights. For my 75 gallon aquarium, I will be using long tubed lights. I will use three different shop lights with two 32 watt bulbs each. That will equal 192 watts. Does this sound like a good plan? Someone please let me know.

[Jellymolly44]

Oops! I mean just regular lights from the hardware store is what I ment.

[Blown 346]

Regular shop lights wont help you. You need to get a light with a kelvin rating of 6500K thru 10,000K for light. ]

I myself get sylvania 6500K daylight bulbs from my local Menards.

[Jellymolly44]

Now I know what your talking about Blown. I was getting frustrated with the pet store bulb prices and wanted to try a regular hardware bulb. Thanks for the info and I will be getting sylvania 6500K light bulbs.

[Blown 346]

6500 K is the lowest you want to go with. My tank looks good but still has a tiny bit of a yellowish tint. If you want the tank to look more white, then I would go with a 10K bulb. Im sure the sand stones color helps with the yellow look.


Here is 6500 K.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b115/plyboy1917/DSCN1515.jpg

[FSM]

Regular shop lights wont help you. You need to get a light with a kelvin rating of 6500K thru 10,000K for light. ]

I myself get sylvania 6500K daylight bulbs from my local Menards.

What are you basing this on?

[SubRosa]

Regular shop lights wont help you. You need to get a light with a kelvin rating of 6500K thru 10,000K for light. ]

I myself get sylvania 6500K daylight bulbs from my local Menards.Bull cookies! Using standard Cool White and Warm White tubes in equal #s grows plants very well within the limits of their intensity. The color rendition isn't my cup of tea but the plants will do well.

[dundadundun]

i personally will atest that when pushing the boundaries of low light capabilities it is very important to have the right spectrum. a 5500 k full spectrum bulb can kill your plants if the same wattage 6500 k bulb just cuts it. that's given bare minimum lighting and basically the same lumens rating and wattage. i have swung back and forth between bulbs enough to know.

those of us that put enough lights over our tanks to grow anything with incandescents will never find this out.

with 3 shop light fixtures over a 75 this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

cri (color rendition index) has nothing to do with plants... it's how good the colors look to the human eye. how accurate the colors of what those bulbs are illuminating are when viewed by the human eye.

if more of us had par meters we could have a real discussion instead of debating the ridiculous numbers posted by manufacturers. i cannot afford one so...

6400 k is supposed to most closely recreate the light of the sun. theoretically this puts us right in the middle of photosynthetically reactive spectrum making more of the light available to the plants.

not too many bulbs come in 6400 k so we settle for 6500 or 6700 in many cases. there are also those who are more concerned with it being pleasing to the eye. these guys tend to be partial to higher k ratings. in most cases less of this light is available to the plants. with light recommendations and newer bulbs getting brighter and brighter with the same wattage output most of us can sacrifice one bulb for the other for the sake of looking pretty.

with 3 fixtures over your tank you can most likely put any bulbs you want in it. i mean even 3000 k is photosynthetically reactive.

so basically we've covered cool white, warm white, daylight and actinic. all provide some light for photosynthesis. if you want to maximize what your plants get from your bulbs stay between 6400k and 6700k for your main bulbs.

[Canuck]

6400 k is supposed to most closely recreate the light of the sun.

No 6400 K is supposed to look like the light of the sun. Big difference. Nothing wrong with with bulbs in that range. And most would be superior to cool white. But K is not the be all end all in lights. Plant bulbs are 2300k, if I was limited in watts thats what I would go with to grow plants. Doesn't look that great but very effective.

[DoctaQ]

plant bulbs are so red because terr. plants use mostly light in the yellow spectrum, plants under water get a slightly different spectrum because water filters out certian colors, nameley those of the yellow red green area. that being said, plants can use all colors, even incandescent because most plants are adapted to possibly growing out of water should a lake shore or river bank dry.

i think the reason that people use 65k instead of the lower spectrums besides the look is for algae control. higher color temps seem to favor plants rather than algae

for the record, super yellow bulbs have higher par ratings than cooler colored bulbs

[SubRosa]

No plants use yellow light. Red and blue is all they use.

[jlink17]

Nevermind

[Blown 346]

What are you basing this on?


Out of the shop Lights I have seen they arent going to give the plants the light they need.

[dundadundun]

No 6400 K is supposed to look like the light of the sun. Big difference. Nothing wrong with with bulbs in that range. And most would be superior to cool white. But K is not the be all end all in lights. Plant bulbs are 2300k, if I was limited in watts thats what I would go with to grow plants. Doesn't look that great but very effective.
2300 k is awful red and plant bulbs t-8 or t-12 have never worked out so good for me.

regardless shop lights will work just fine. frank has no issues with them... http://www.njagc.net/events/meetings/meeting_2008_09_27.htm and neither do i.

also you will find that 6400 - 6700 rated bulbs typically cover a good portion of photosynthetically reactive colors considering the peak is right in the middle there as opposed to being skewed in one direction or the other. this gives a wide range of decent light without having to do homework on specific bulbs.

no k is not the be all end all but until manufacturers start listing in par k and nanometers is all we have. well, until we measure par ourselves.

as far as i'm concerned i would not put a 2300/3000 k bulb over anything but a terrestrial. in that case i'd only do it if it were the size i want it already and just wanted it to bloom. hydroponics typically use 2 or 3 systems for this reason. you can have a small system for starting seeds, another one for growing them out and yet another one for blooming/budding purposes. that's where the red bulbs would be. once they're transplanted to this third system they're basically expected not to grow but to reproduce and overall just look pretty... and other things depending on your purposes or intended crop.

[DeeDeeK]

There is a study showing that GE cool white fluorescent is a very effective light to grow plants by. You can find it in "Ecology of the Planted Tank" by D. Walstad.

Also, I have a friend who owns the LFS and he uses spiral cfl lights he buys bulk, warm white and cool white. Every tank in his shop is planted and productive enough for him to propagate and sell his own plants rather than order from wholesalers.

Low color temperature "white" lights produce plenty of red and adequate blue for plant life, God as my witness.

I say try out your plan - you'll see your idea will work just fine - no need for 6500K+ lamps.

[FSM]

Out of the shop Lights I have seen they arent going to give the plants the light they need.

You basically just repeated what you've already said.

[DoctaQ]

No plants use yellow light. Red and blue is all they use.

yellower light is what i meant
which would have combinations of light in the longer wavelength end of the spectrum and less blues/purple