DIY Compact Fluorescent (CFL) Strip Light Retrofit

I've been able to grow all sorts of plants with my setup, no co2 and no ferts...other than the occasional dosing of flourish. I had better results though when I ditched all HOBs for canisters. If you are having problems, it probably isn't the type of lighting, but more your lighting schedule. I stay in the 9 to 10 hour range, but with only 6 to 7 hours with full light. Before I had my lights on a lot longer, but only small results. And obviously, co2 and ferts would definitely help your cause.
 
I'm gonna be doing this setup again later today only this time with my 46 bowfront. I plan on using 4 23w cfl's to give me 2wpg. I'll post pictures later.
 
A friend of mine is borrowing my camera so I can't post pics yet but I ended up being able to find those double fixtures in a different light set up and just took out what I needed instead of using the single fixtures like my first retrofit on my 29. I put in 4 x 27w bulbs giving me 108watts for a lovely 2.35 wpg upgrade from my initial 0.87 wpg that resulted from the stock setup. The bulbs were kinda big and it was hard to get them set up the same way as the others so I had to run bolts through the top down through where the vent slits are and mounted them that way making it easy to adjust the height so they didn't touch the glass below or the plastic above.
 
Im planning this retrofit, im assuming I will no longer need the starter from the strip flourescent and the ballast is incorporated into the cfl?
 
HI! I'm new to planted tanks and loving it. But I have a question (of course)!

I'm going to follow these instructions for retrofiting my stock 17W bulb on my tank, but am curious about the term "watts" as used in relation to the CFLs. Isn't watt best used as a description of energy consumption? And if so, do we really need "2 watts per gallon" or something like that if using more effecient CFL bulbs? Since a 60 watt incadescent and a 13 watt CFL produce the equivalent amount of light, but use different amounts of energy to do it, do we need a better term to describe how much light to introduce into our planted tanks?

Confused...??? !!! Thanks for this great thread, and all the info contained herein.

Cheers,

--Stacy
 
did this mod on my dual 15 watt lights that came with my 55 gallon, and the results were awesome. really bright and brings out the colors of the fish. i got my bulbs at walmart, 6500k daylight 15 watt bulbs. 4 on each side for a total of 120 watts. got the sockets for the bulbs at lowes. only problem i ran into was with my stock switches. they wouldnt work with the new setup. i have to get some that can handle more power. i just wired them to the plug for now till i get a switch. thanks for the thread, love the results
 
trochilids said:
HI! I'm new to planted tanks and loving it. But I have a question (of course)!

I'm going to follow these instructions for retrofiting my stock 17W bulb on my tank, but am curious about the term "watts" as used in relation to the CFLs. Isn't watt best used as a description of energy consumption? And if so, do we really need "2 watts per gallon" or something like that if using more effecient CFL bulbs? Since a 60 watt incadescent and a 13 watt CFL produce the equivalent amount of light, but use different amounts of energy to do it, do we need a better term to describe how much light to introduce into our planted tanks?

Confused...??? !!! Thanks for this great thread, and all the info contained herein.

Cheers,

--Stacy
Click to expand...

The 2 WPG rule of thumb is iffy at best and only applies to a certain range of tank sizes. When considering WPG you want to consider it in regard to the fluorescent rating, not the equivilent incandescent wattage value. There are lots of threads on here that go way into detail on the topic if you do a search for keywords like light, watts, wattage, WPG, PAR, kelvin, etc. Hope this helps.
 
justinf67 said:
did this mod on my dual 15 watt lights that came with my 55 gallon, and the results were awesome. really bright and brings out the colors of the fish. i got my bulbs at walmart, 6500k daylight 15 watt bulbs. 4 on each side for a total of 120 watts. got the sockets for the bulbs at lowes. only problem i ran into was with my stock switches. they wouldnt work with the new setup. i have to get some that can handle more power. i just wired them to the plug for now till i get a switch. thanks for the thread, love the results
Click to expand...
Nice to hear it worked out for you...and welcome to posting. I rarely used my switches, you are better off just hooking them up to timers.
 
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