Where to buy a Sylvania Gro-Lux bulb? (Posted planted-tank contest results.)

[Mr. Bill]

Hello,

I did a search at Pet Warehouse, Big Als, PetCo, and Petsmart, but they don't seem to carry a standard 20-watt Sylvania Gro-Lux T12 fluorescent bulb. I did find one store on a Froogle.com search, but the single bulb was $19.95, plus $8 shipping. Is this really what these bulbs go for?!

A point in the right direction would be VERY helpful!

Just for kick's, the below site has some totally awesome planted aquarium pics, and the "winners" of the contest. Some of them used this Gro-lux bulb, and I wanted to give it a try.

http://www.aquabotanic.com/contest/index.asp?Type=0


Thanks!

Bill

 

[boyohboy]

I'm in Ontario Canada, so may not be exacly very helpful. But just today I saw the 24" Sylvania T12 Gro-lux in Rona (a hardward store) for $4.95 Canadian dollar. That should be it I think?! So maybe you can try HomeDepot, Lowe and whatnot.

 

[djlen]

Saw them in either Lowes or Home Depot a while back.
You can definitely find 6700K tubes in either place. They are just as good, IME.

Len

 

[RTR]

The Gro-Lux WS is a far superior tube to standard Gro-Lux for plant growth IME. But I don't use them for aquatics at all anymore. I like the 6700K Phillips (?) tubes that Len mentioned which I get from the local Home Depot.

 

[Mr. Bill]

Hmm, I'll have to look into that Phillips 6700K tube! I did find a site though, at $6.91 a tube, for the Sylvania Gro-lux "normal" spectrum.

http://www.saveonlighting.com/itemdetail.asp?item=4241

RTR, the site below has a quote; "The Gro-Lux normal lamp, not the wide-spectrum, seems to have output that perfectly matches all of the chlorophyll A/B and carotenoid absorption ranges, with a large emphasis on red energy."

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/lights/msg1219163512780.html

I'm wondering if this quote is suggesting the "normal spectrum" is better for aquarium plants or not. (?) Is there a reason why you highly prefered the wide-spectrum version of this bulb over the normal spectrum? Just curious, because I'm not sure on which one to try, since they do offer both. Why did you eventually switch to the Phillips?

I also just stumbled upon a pretty cool site, which has comparison pictures & graphs of dozens of bulbs, including many of the Phillips bulbs which you now prefer. I haven't had time to decipher through it all yet, but it looks interesting.

http://www.aqua-web.org/users/saurama/index.htm


Bill

 

[RTR]

For potted plants and for aquatics, IME the GL-WS was many-fold better than the standard GL tube. I got poor growth with stabdard GL in tanks, and they looked awful. I did not use either alone, as neither was much good on its on for me. I paired one GL-WS with one standard Cool White and got decent growth, if not super "look" visually.

For some time I have been using one Spx-50 (GE Sunshine) and one Spx-65 to get a bit better growth, maybe a bit better "look" as well. But Home Depot stopped handling GE and went to Phillips. The 6700K sounded okay, and in use I like it so far, and like the look better than my former mixes.

All those tubes are on my utility tanks, many are planted, but they are not display tanks. On all my display tanks I still use Tritons. That is still my favorite "look" and they grow plants very well without looking too bright. But they are a bit $$ for use in the tank room.