fluorescent tubes

[ThirdEyE]

i'm using 2 4' long 40 watt "daylight" ultra bulbs.

they're a little too bright for my liking.

anybody know any other bulbs that have a dimmer appearance without sacraficing quality?

"daylight" tubes

initial lumens: 3050
color temp: 6500
color rendering: 75

[djlen]

Tell us a little about the tank.....gallons, height etc.
Len

[ThirdEyE]

55g tank

48" L
20 1/2" H
13" W

i have a shop light suspended over the tank, exactly 4" above it.
any lower and accessability would be hard

[aquascaper]

I also have shop lights over my tank, I have a total of 4 flourescent tubes. They include 2 daylight ultras, 1 plant and aquarium, 1 sunshine bulb. I feel this works best for my plants at the most cost efficient method.

All the above bulbs are from GE, so any hardware store should have them. The GE sunshine bulb glows orangy, the GE plant and aquarium glows pinkish and the GE daylight ultras glows bluey white.

So you can try either combination of the above...

[Gumby7]

What I've done in the past as a short term fix is try to block some of the light from entering the tank.

If your lights don't run HOT and you are sure you want to reduce the illumination (permanently?) you can wrap black electrical tape in a long spiral along the length of the tube. If the tape is 3/4" leave 3/4" of the tube showing between the wraps. Results may vary.

Alternatively, especially if the lights run HOT, place some non-combustable sheet material on top of the cover glass. Strips of scrap galvanized sheet metal come to mind.

Or just remove one of the bulbs. Modern fixtures will still light the remaining tube. (Or install a grow light bulb with 1/4 the lumens!).

Gumby7

[RockysDad]

they're a little too bright for my liking.

What do you mean by too bright? The type of plants you have should determine the amount of light you need. Using only two 40W bulbs on a 55G is a minimum amount of light for a planted tank. Any lower and nothing will grow. You might want to think about adding a canopy to house the lights. That way the lights would stay within the canopy and reflect directly into your tank. You also might want to think about adding another fixture to increase the amount of light if you are ready to seriously get into planted tanks.

[beviking]

Hey ThirdEyE, I know exactly what you mean but I think RockysDad is correct about the plants determine amount of light. Maybe a darker background and/or gravel would "absorb" some of the brightness? Do you have any floating plants? How about some (or more) to shade the rest of the tank. I know squat about planted tanks but I would think overdoing the floating plants may affect those below so don't over do it.

[ThirdEyE]

well i should have worded the first post a little differently

i know only 2, 40 watt tubes is low wattage for a 55, i'll most likely build my own canopy that'll hold 4 when it gets warmer out.

when i said "dimmer" i meant the appearance, the shop light floods my room with tons of excess light. Of course a canopy would solve the problem but since all the tools are outside in the unheated garage i'd build one in the spring.

when i build it i'll need 2 more tubes anyway, so buying 2 "dimmer" ones now isn't really a big deal

[Cichlid Woman]

If you get a couple of "plant bulbs," the amount of light visible to the human eye will reduce a lot--and the plants still get the blue/red spectrum (dim to our eye) that they need.

I run one "plant bulb" and one sunshine (daylight/full spectrum, 5000K) bulb side-by-side above my planted tank, and I really like it. I run both bulbs during the day, when the sunshine bulb provides a spectrum which is bright enough to the human eye. Then I turn the sunshine off in the evening, leaving just the plant bulb going, which reduces the tank's appearance to a really nice, dimmer "dusk" sort of level. And throughout, the plants are getting a full shot of the type of light they need. Then I turn both lights off when I go to bed.

So I guess what I'm suggesting is that you replace half your bulbs with "plant bulbs," which are much dimmer to the human eye but provide exactly what the plants need--light in the red/blue spectrum. That would bring your total light level down quite a bit.

Oh--and I got the plant bulb at Lowes and the Sunshine at Walmart, for $6 apiece. Yes!!

-- Pat

[ThirdEyE]

thx pat

i'll pick two of those up

[tyler]

before you do that, i'd try using a floating plant like frogbit or salvinia to diffuse the light.

[beviking]

Cichlid Woman, I really like the idea of the dimmer lights on in the evening and plan on setting up my hood with a similar set up. It sounds like your plants are doing well so I'd like to ask how long (hrs a day) and what lights (wattage/gallon and K rating) are on? Thanks.

Bill

[Dwarfnut]

Thirdeye,
First, I'd suggest getting some kind of canopy or something to keep the light in the tank, not in the rest of the room.

Next, I'm suprised you think that those bulbs are too bright as I think they are much "cooler" color wise as many tubes. This past weekend, I just switched out all my 4' tubes to the Phillips "Daylight Deluxe" bulbs with 6,500 K, 84 CRI and really like the results. Obviously, it's too early to tell if the plants like them, but with a higher temp than the 4,100 K bulbs I had before, I hope the plants do even better! These new bulbs are about half as bright to my eye as the old bulbs and give a much better, cooler appearance to everything. Now I do have enclosed canopys on all my tanks, so I keep those free-flying Photons to a minimum! Also, since I have 4 bulbs on my 75 gallon tank, I do find that mixing 1 or 2 regular 'aquarium' bulbs in the mix gives a nice color also!

Bill C.

[ThirdEyE]

the light going throughout the room is the problem, otherwise i agree with you they have a good look

i cant say what 4 of them will look like

but a canopy is definetly next on my "to do" list for my planted tank

after that then i'll try out co2