improvised light set up

[lmarshall]

I recently posted about some new plants I got and my light set up. I'm running a ten gallon with a 15 watt fluorescent, which is probably not quite enough for the plants I just got. I'm trying to not spend much $$ here, so I went looking for a simple solution.

Today I was poking around in the attic looking for old aquarium gear (we had some tanks years ago when I was a kid), and I came across some fluorescent light fixtures for starting garden plants. One holds two 24 inch 20 watt fluorescent bulbs, and will run just one bulb (which is good I don't want to know what would happen with algae if I had 40 watts on 10 gallons). So my light issues may be solved for now.

In addition to the fixture I found some old bulbs. These are meant for growing terrestrial plants, will these work? they may also be more than 15 years old so there's that to consider.... they do however produce light.

 

[gmh]

You would have 24 inch bulbs over a 20 inch tank, so you actually have less than 20 watts of light getting in there. Maybe you could run both bulbs but elevate them a foot or more above the tank?
The old bulbs should work fine depending on how long they were in use. They do lose some efficiency over time when in use.

 

[lmarshall]

good point, about the dimensions and wattage, hadn't thought of that. This fixture allows height adjustments up to about a foot and half above the surface, so hopefully 40 watts won't be a big problem.

I think I'll try these lights out for awhile and see how the plants do, if things start to go south I'll change the bulbs.