Light-bulb question.

[Nitro]

I recently bought a coralife light fixture for my 20h. It has 2 t5 bulbs in it. One is a daylight and one is a 6700 or something like that. The problem is that they bulbs are only 14watts each. That gives me only 1.4 watts/gallon. I saw online that other companies sell "high output" 24watt t5 bulbs of the same size. Will my fixture handle this extra wattage or will the balasts fail (or worse)?

If this won't work, is there another alternative to get more wattage? Do those underwater lamps work? (I don't really have anymore room on top of my tank.

 

[eurostar]

i had a similar problem i took off my flouresent hood and hung a bulb with a rteflective shade and put in a larger compact flouresent bulb and now i have 3 watts per gallon. otherewise i had less then half that and my hood couldnt handle anymore

 

[Nitro]

Thanks, but that doesn't exactly answer my question... I just bought this thing for nearly $60 and can't return it because i'm past my time. Can I put 24watt bulbs in a 14watt balast (or does coralife support 24watt also)?

 

[eurostar]

you can but its only going to put out 14 watts of power

 

[magafish18]

thats not good?

 

[plah831]

I've heard that it's not good to push your ballast beyond its stated power capacity. It might run really hot and start a fire. Or maybe it'll just put out less light, like eurostar said. But I wouldn't risk it. My neighbor's house nearly burned down from an electrical fire started by his fish tank.