DIY Compact Fluorescent (CFL) Strip Light Retrofit
- Thread starter BoredAgain
- Start date
Did I read this right? You made a CFL strip light with moon lighting to simulate the lighting change from day to night? Thats awsome!!! Im making a CFL strip light and was looking for some info when I came across your post. Im thinking about doing this.
It works great too...my fish love waking up and going to sleep gently. Also the plants seem to grow faster...though I'm sure that's not actually the case.
My electric bill decreased when I set this up, but I also replaced all the bulbs in my house with CFLs as well.
For a planted tank, this will not reduce your power bill. Compared to a T5 or T12 bulb, in order to achieve the same light level in the tank, using CFL's will actually increase your power bill. If you use the same amount of watts, since the efficiency of CFL's is decreased compared to T5s and T12s, you have to actually add more bulbs to maintain the same amount of useable light. I run 206 watts of CFL, but it's really only about 170 watts of useable light. I did that because it was cheaper up front. In the long run, an AH supply retrokit probably would have paid itself off just in terms of effciency(especially out here in Cali).
100 watts is 100 watts, no matter what kind of bulbs they are.
Even an incadescent hood still has a 20 watt bulb. If you replace it with a 20 watt CFL, your tank may get brighter and you'll be able to grow plants, but it'll still be 20 watts on your power bill. Almost everybody has fluorescents in aquariums now(unless you are using metal halides), so CFL vs T5, watts is watts.
100 watts is 100 watts, no matter what kind of bulbs they are.
Even an incadescent hood still has a 20 watt bulb. If you replace it with a 20 watt CFL, your tank may get brighter and you'll be able to grow plants, but it'll still be 20 watts on your power bill. Almost everybody has fluorescents in aquariums now(unless you are using metal halides), so CFL vs T5, watts is watts.
Last edited:
I knew how many watts I was going to be using for this setup, so I was sure to decrease those watts in other areas....and more so. So that is how CFLs can benefit your hobby and your entire house.
Well, of course, but looking at the aquarium only, it's power consumption remains the same. A reduction in net power consumption throughout the house cannot be attributed to using CFL's in the aquarium.
