Planted 5 gal Hex

ThePBM said:
Frankly, the plants don't seem to mind because it appears they get sunlight. Soft white is around the 2500k range i believe which probably does nothing for the plants.
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Mine's a plain screw in 11-watt fluorescent and I have no natural light in my kitchen. There's a wall between it and the livingroom and no windows (it's located on the internal walls of the apartment, the livingroom and bedrooms are located with the outer walls).

My plants are doing quite well.
 
I don't have the Eclipse Hex, I have an Aqua-Tech, which I think it pretty much the same, but the cheap one from Wal-Mart.

I looked at Pet Smart yesterday and they had some incandescent bulbs, but nothing for plants. And BIG florescent bulbs for plants, but nothing that would even come close to fitting.

I looked at Wal-Mart and they have a CFL, but I couldn't find any numbers on it and it didn't say anything about for plants.

And I looked at Home Depot and didn't find anything that would fit my current light, but found some plant light bulbs that screw in to a regular light, but nothing longish and skinny.

I am now thinking about getting a small clip on light, then I think I would be able to aim it towards the back and grow plants back there, right?

Also, on the watts, on the CFL lights they say something like 10W (40 W equivalant). So is the 10 W too big? And how many watts is too much for my tank? Also will it be different it is a clip on type light since more light would be going into the room too?

Oh, and thanks for the syringe tip for the Flourish, I'll pick one up.

Thanks again!
 
When talking about WPG, we are talking about fluorescent light watts, not incandescent. Incandescent light does nothing for plants. A 10 watt is low light for a 5 hex. Even though in the WPG equation it would be 2 watts per gallon, the WPG rule breaks down in smaller and larger tanks out of the 20G-90G range. Also, the 10W (40W) equivalent just means that that bulb (fluorescent) uses less energy than an incandescent bulb with the same light output. Incandescent bulbs are highly inefficient and most of the energy used goes into producing heat with little light. So for far less heat output and energy usage you can have a bulb that puts out much more light. This is why you may see promotions for Energy smart CF bulbs in stores now.

In my Aqua-Tech 5 hex, I have a 10 watt CF bulb found in the fish section of Walmart. The plants that are in this tank are in my signature.
 
KarenElissa said:
So something like a 20/25w bulb would be better for a wider variety of plants?
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Sure would, but the only issue is how you are gonna get that light over that tank. You'd have to build your own hood, and probably do fertilizers and CO2 addition. I wouldn't know as I haven't tried.

I'm not too sure on what the high light barrier would be on such a small tank, but I think 25 watts would be just fine to grow many plants.
 
Pointed at the top? I'm sure a desk light would fine, as long as it's fluorescent light. Would the tank be getting any ambient light from a nearby window? That would also add light for the tank.
 
ya, it seems to be pretty easy to find CF bulbs to fit your regular socket so I figure that might be easier that finding a bulb to fit my hood since I haven't had much luck with that so far.

And it gets little to no light from outside. I get pretty much no direct sunlight in my apartment and only a little light other wise, so that isn't going to help much. It seems pretty dim in the tank when I turn all the lights off.
 
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