Coralife COLORMAX bulb

[aquariageek]

After re-doing the aquascape and adding fish to my 20L, I decided to get a new bulb. I replaced my GE Freshwater bulb which emitted a sort of orange-ish-pink light with a Coralife COLORMAX bulb. I was excited to put it in, but when I put it in and fired it up, the light was VERY dim.

Does anybody run a Coralife COLORMAX? How does it look-- maybe even if you have one of those fancy digital cameras you could snap a pic? :grinyes:

I am thinking that maybe my ballast is bad-- but the old bulb works fine--

 

[HiImSean]

i had the little screw in one on my 10g. i took it out and replaced it with a marineland CF from petsmart. my plants are doing great and it doesnt give off the dim pink light

 

[galen]

i did. it gave off a pinkish hue. just go to home depot and buy the compact flourescent bulbs at 5500k. they cost like 8 bucks for a pack of 2.

 

[12 Volt Man]

it is very pink. not good by itself.

i run one with a coralife 6700 K bulb (T5) in one of their aqualight setups.

it looks fantastic in conjunction with a bright white bulb, (see my avatar pic - its on that tank) but alone it is not good.

 

[loaches r cool]

Yeah I have a pic of the lighting over my 45G bowfront but its not a spiral colormax(if thats what you were talking about) its a 50/50 CF 65W (half colormax, half 6700K). I really like the color spread on this tank, 4 different color out of just two bulbs! I like the colormax but probably not use it as the only bulb but mixed with some full spectrum daylight bulbs.

Top is 50/50 actinic/10,000K
Bottom is 50/50 6700K/Colormax

 

[grannylvsfish]

whats the best and brightest bulb out there?

 

[DarkSoul]

couple things I havent seen anyone mention.

1.) just because the bulb is dim to the human eye, does not mean that it is dim to the plants. what we see, and what the plant "sees" are not the same thing.

2.) Most of the new growing specific bulbs (aquarium or otherwise) contain alot of rare earth phosphors, which take some time to warm up and achieve full brightness, that and they require a little bit of "burn in" time.