kj5kb
KEEPER OF CATS, FISH AND CATFISHES
Unfortunately, there's no way to significantly improve that lighting with just a bulb change.
The cheapest/easiest thing for a 55G is to hang a 2-tube shoplight over it with 'daylight' tubes. That would bring you solidly into lo-light plant territory. You can often find diamond plate shoplights that look a lot nicer than the plain white cheapies, tho the cheapies will do the job just fine - I have several over some non-display tanks. If you can find a shoplite that accepts T8 lamps, they are more efficient than T12s.
Powercompacts would be my next choice; there are AH supply powercompact retrofit kits that would kick you up into the 200W range...depends on how much you want to spend/build.
You could get a bunch of light sockets and use screw-in CFLs with a reflector.
Check out the DIY forum for LOADS of other lighting suggestions and to see what others are building.
I'd probably go with the shoplite for now if you can hang it or fit it into your hood.
The cheapest/easiest thing for a 55G is to hang a 2-tube shoplight over it with 'daylight' tubes. That would bring you solidly into lo-light plant territory. You can often find diamond plate shoplights that look a lot nicer than the plain white cheapies, tho the cheapies will do the job just fine - I have several over some non-display tanks. If you can find a shoplite that accepts T8 lamps, they are more efficient than T12s.
Powercompacts would be my next choice; there are AH supply powercompact retrofit kits that would kick you up into the 200W range...depends on how much you want to spend/build.
You could get a bunch of light sockets and use screw-in CFLs with a reflector.
Check out the DIY forum for LOADS of other lighting suggestions and to see what others are building.
I'd probably go with the shoplite for now if you can hang it or fit it into your hood.
