Home Depot Fluorescent Tubes

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turtlefish

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May 9, 2005
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I was wondering if there are fluorescents out there at hardware stores that are sufficient for aquatic plant growth in fish tanks. I know they have full spectrum bulbs, is this good for plant growth or not? Should I specifically look for bulbs with a K of 5000? I want to grow some somewhat low-medium light plants in a 30 gallon tank and was going to use two side-by side shop light fixtures. Any better ideas?
Thanks
 
Last time I was at Home Depot they had some 5500k philips bulbs that should be decent for plants, but I'm currently using 6500k ge bulbs from Walmart that are sold in 2 packs. I'm using a 2 bulb fixture over a 50g tank with mostly low to medium light plants. As for what you should do for lighting depends upon how much your willing to invest and how much light you need. I mean if you put 80w of flourescent lighting over a 30g you might be in the area of needing co2 also.
 
I tried to go cheap at one point. Bought about 5 different kinds of bulbs at Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart. Ended up returning all of them because the color spectrum was terrible. Some of the bulbs were regular "daylight" bulbs and some were "grow bulbs". None looked as good as the real aquarium bulbs.

I don't doubt they would have been perfectly acceptable for growing plants, but I could not stand the color of any of those cheap bulbs.
 
I can only offer my own further speculation on this issue. Right now I'm staring at the empty sleeve from a Sylvania "Daylight" 6500k bulb that is in a fixture over my future mbuna home. (Its companion is a GE Plant and Aquarium bulb.) An african violet is now growing well under the extra foot or so of the fixture that hangs off the side of the tank.

Now, the reason why I felt okay in choosing these is because I am merely trying to create an atmosphere of good coloration for my mbunas. There is no worry about growing anything other than algae in this tank. (And the african violet.)

So I keep thinking as to whether I should just use these 6500k bulbs in my planted tanks from now on. Then I keep thinking that the color phosphors might not be there. Then I think maybe the whole color phosphors thing is just a way for companies like Coralife and ZooMed to sell plain old bulbs at a premium. (Color phosphors of course being that which these manufacturers claim to use in order to render certain colors in the spectrum to be more luminous than they would be in regular old bulbs. These being red and blue: the best wavelengths for photosynthesis.)

I am therefore left in the dark (pardon the feeble pun!) as to whether I think it worth the risk of finding out if these standard bulbs will grow plants just as well as the "specialty" bulbs.


Many indoor terrestrial gardeners use plain old fluorescent tubes in various combinations to achieve good results. But then again they're not fighting off algae like we are. Back on the subject of my african violet, it looks like it's growing well under these lights.


So I have a hypothesis: you can succesfully grow aquatic plants with a well chosen combination of standard hardware store bulbs, but if the specialty bulbs do what they claim to do, (enhance the strength of the reds and blues in the spectrum) then you will do better with the specialty bulbs.



I hope more posts come up on this thread because it's a question I've had for a few weeks now.
 
I use Phillips 6500K Daylight Deluxe triphosphor NO tubes from Home Depot on most of my utility tanks and they do grow plants quite well. I prefer Tritons for the display tanks, as I like the l"ook" better, but it has gone off the market. If I can't find an alternative that works as well, the Phillips tube will be their replacements, and are much less expensive.
 
I found the Philips 6500K to be too blue/purplish to me and the Philips 5000K to be a bit green/yellowish. However, I now have an 18000K AquaGlo and a Philips 5000K on the tank and the fish look outstanding. If I didn't already have the AquaGlo I'd try mixing the 6500K with the 5000K. They may be enough to balance each other out.
 
I've found Philips Aquarelle and NEC Biolux tubes to be quite common in hardware stores here in Australia, The Philips Aquarelle tubes are a dedicated Aquarium tube and I have had excellent plant growth from them, the NEC Biolux are a grow light, but quite commonly used by aquarists down here and I have heard they're quite excellent. Both tubes were well priced and suprisingly the same Philips tubes were at my LFS for 5 times the price I paid at the hardware store. I get the feeling that the big cost in Aquarium Tubes is the LFS/LPS profit margin.
 
On one of my 75gallon tanks I have 1 T12 6500 one T12 5500 and 2 T8 AquaGlo bulbs. It works well but replacement is about 6 months before the color changes and pisses me off.
 
Do you think that if i get a full spectrum tube at home depot the color will not be kind of wacky? And will it be able to provide the right amount of light for plant growth?
 
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