Lighting a 10 gal

Q

Quartermain

From the deepest darkest abyss
Jan 10, 2005
378
0
16
I've run into a stumbling blocking setting up a planted 10 gal. The strip light that came with the arquarium has one fixture for an 18'' flourescent bulb. The highest wattage 18'' bulb I can find is 20 watts and most aquarium-rated bulbs are only 15 watts. I need to bump my lighting up to 3 watts/gal. But I cannot for the life of me find a dual fixture strip light that fits 18'' bulbs. All of the dual strips are 24'' and up.

My question is what was your solution for lighting your planted 10 gal? And where did you purchase the fixtures?

Thanks!
 
Have you considered a retro-fit kit from AH Supply? They allow you to keep your current strip/hood and just replace the ballasts, reflector and endcaps and with some elementary wiring (which they provide detailed instructions for) you're all set. You can find them here.
 
Well, I just searched Big Al's, Drs. Foster & Smith and Pet Solutions.Com and it seems 20" strip lights are a bit of a PITA to find in general, especially if you want one that puts out a decent amount of lighting.
 
Yes, that particular 20" 28W is 50/50 actinic and daylight 10,000K.. but Coralife does make that exact same Aqualight in a freshwater version using 6700K bulbs. That's the one I use over my 10gallon and high light plants go crazy under it. Very inexpensive if you ask me. Definitely my suggestion.

If you think finding a 20" light is hard try finding a 20" light that you can fit at least 50-60W in it! I can find ones that are 96W and ones that are 28W.. and could retrofit for 36W or so.. but I either find too much or too little light. I'm trying to setup a 10gallon with 5wpg.. its for a marine tank.

Oh, one last note, I've been doing lots of light research lately and it seems that retrofitting kits are soooo much more expensive that pre-assembled lights of the exact same quality. Why is that?? Like at ahsupply I could retrofit what I want but it'll cost about $120... that's a lot! Or at hellolights you can buy pre-assembled for way less than you can retrofit for the exact same hood length and wattage. I may as well just get a pre-assembled one that I at least know will work. ;) I'm not too bad with a screwdriver.. but we're talking electric wires and such here. (Maybe I'm too much of a girl.. hehehe.)

>Sarah
 
3 wpg over a 10g tank would still be considered low light. Small tanks under 20g and large tanks over 75g need more light than the wpg rule would recommend. Check out this link if you want the technicalities of it Lighting.
 
Thanks for the link. Fortunately the plants I have are mainly low light anyway (sword, anubias, crypt, etc) so this should not be a problem. The aquarium also gets plenty of natural light which I'm sure might throw it off a bit but I can alway axe some plants to adjust.. not like any of this is really super expensive.

I went with the CoralLife Compact Flourescent 20'' 1x28. Got the accessory mounting kit and a 6700K bulb to replace the 50/50 that comes with the balast/hood. I doubt it'll prove insufficient for the 10 gal seeing as though it is at least twice as good as my current lighting and the few plants that I have right now are growing... growing poorly, but they are growing. :)
 
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