Lighting WPG question.

G

gregm

AC Members
May 14, 2007
247
0
0
Albuquerque, NM
Hi guys. One of the bulbs in my 10 gallon just burned out last night. I never really cared to take a look at what type of lighting came with the TopFin 10 Gallon aquarium kit until this happened.

The hood has two bulbs inside of it. The bulbs are both 15w (the hood says you can put anything up to or lower then a 25w bulb).

So does this mean that on my 10 gallon tank that I have 3 watts per gallon? (2x 15w bulbs in a 10 gallon aquarium).

Would this be considered low lighting?
 
No, the light per gallon rule breaks down in tanks smaller than 20 gallons, but even so 3 WPG would be higher on the lighting scale(medium-high lighting). In a 10 gallon with medium light plants 30 watts will be fine. My plants grow fine in my 10 gallon with 20 watts of Compact Fluorescent lighting. What plants were you planning on using? Are your bulbs fluorescent?
 
incandescent I believe. The hood just contains two screw in bulbs (both 15w) and a reflector.

As for the plants, right now just some anacharis and some apongeton. Come next week when the UPS man comes to my door the entire tank will be redone with a Flourite substrate and a low light plan assortment from aquariumgarden.com

http://aquariumgarden.com/index.php?doc_base=plant_info.php&plantid=as090
 
I can tell you, at walmart they have 10 watt flourescent bulbs that should fit right where your 10 watt lights were (the are the screw in kind) and that should really make your tank brighter, and nicer to look at. It will also reduce the temperature at the surface of the water (reducing the fluctuation during the day.)
 
Brian Bivens said:
I can tell you, at walmart they have 10 watt flourescent bulbs that should fit right where your 10 watt lights were (the are the screw in kind) and that should really make your tank brighter, and nicer to look at. It will also reduce the temperature at the surface of the water (reducing the fluctuation during the day.)
Click to expand...

Yes, I use these for my comparable incandescent hood as well and they work great. The price is nice too at ~$4.95/per. I also mix these with a Cora-life Colormax mini-compact fluorescent bulb with adds a fuller spectrum.

Anyway, don't use incandescents, use some form of fluorescent that is not soft-white.
 
Brian Bivens said:
I can tell you, at walmart they have 10 watt flourescent bulbs that should fit right where your 10 watt lights were (the are the screw in kind) and that should really make your tank brighter, and nicer to look at. It will also reduce the temperature at the surface of the water (reducing the fluctuation during the day.)
Click to expand...
The bulbs in there are 15w.

Would switching to the wal-mart bulb be beneficial in this case?

I was looking at the Coral life bulbs on Big Al's Online also. $11 bucks for one of those doesn't seem too bad considering I can probably find them here locally and avoid shipping and handling costs.
 
Yes the CoraLife incandescent replacements will work just fine too if you don't have a nearby WalMart. BTW, WPG always refers to fluorescents, incandescent bulbs are much less efficient. Fluorescents often have a "compare to..." wattage that compares to incandescents, (14W puts out the same light as a 60W incandescent). Your 30W of incandescent would be like 7W of fluorescent, so 2x 10W bulbs would be tripling your previous light.
 
Because incandescent bulbs do nothing for the plants. Those bulbs are highly inefficient and most of they're energy goes to producing heat. The rating of watts isn't a measure of how bright a light is; it is a rating of how much energy the bulb uses. Fluorescents not only run cooler, but they provide a better spectrum of light for the plants. When looking for the compact fluorescents look for the ones labeled "daylight bulb" this is around 6,500K and is a good spectrum for most plants. Incandescent bulbs run at about 2,500K which is a very yellowy color light, while the fluorescent lights at 6,500 give of a more white color. I use the 10 watt compact fluorescents found at Walmart in my incandescent hood.
 
Sweet, thanks guys :D

Gonna goto the LFS to pick up some live black worms tonite, so I'll check out the pricing on their lighting there and then probably head down the street to Wal-Mart afterwards.

Does anyone have more info on the wal-mart bulbs, or are they the only 10w florescent bulbs there more often then not?
 
They are the only screw-in fluorescents in the pet supplies section near the other aquarium lighting. Near the other lightbulbs are other screw-in fluorescents of several different wattages that may or may not fit your fixture.

Incandescents are a poor choice for a planted fish tank for two reasons.

1) Efficiency - A 60W incandescent puts out the same number of lumens (visible light) as a 14W fluorescent. 2 15W incandescents puts out something like 400 lumens. 2 10W fluorescents put out something like 1200 lumens (varies by brand obviously), so for 2/3 the power you get 3x the light.

2) Efficacy (Effectiveness) - Incandescent bulbs put out 95% of their power as infrared (heat) and the remaining 5% is not the spectrums plants need. 5000K - 10000K rated (daylight) fluorescents produce the spectrum that plants need to successfully grow.

Both contribute to the reason to use fluorescents instead of incandescents. The WPG rule (guildline really) assumes good reflectors and daylight fluorescents, because other spectrums, no reflector, etc all reduce the amount of light on the plants, and the only way to make a "rule" such as this is to assume ideal conditions.

Sorry for the long, unneccesary post, just wanted to both validate my point above and agree with Sammie7 regarding his :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom