Worst light to grow plants thread!

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VampAro69

Candiru
MFK Member
Dec 21, 2008
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Venice, FL
I was looking for a lot of feedback on this question.

Who has the cheepest setup for lighting in their planted or non planted tank?

If the question doesnt workout it will just sink to the bottom.


I have a light I bought from Home-depot and its 48 inches long sporting 2 bulbs and they give out 40 watts a pop. Thats 80 watts that I got for under 50 dollars, and the bulbs are for plantlife/aquarium growth. My setup includes another light with 130 watt and another 80 watt light, over my 90 gallon tank. I have also used metal halide lights with 150 watts, but only when I am home because they get hot.

Just looking for some ideas to get a cheaper light! that you have had sucess with ! ! ! ! !

Talk away....
 
basically any light you put over your tank that is in the right K rating will let you grow plants. but the more intense light you put over your thank the high light plants you can handle. with most NO light you will be stuck with low light plants no matter how many you hang over your tank. they just dont reach to the bottom of the tank. you can get buy with any light you want to try and put over the tank i would stick to some light that is in the roughly 6500 to 10000k range and be sure there is some way to keep them dry. most non aquatic lights do not account for the extra humidity that is present over a tank.

dont know if that is what your looking for but hope it helps atleast a little bit
 
I have two 36" t8 two bulb light fixtures from home depot with 10k plant bulbs in them as well as two other 1 bulb regular aquarium fixtures with 10k bulbs. The home depot fixtures were about $36 a piece. These lights are on a 6ft tank and seem to be growing my plants well. Nice growth, not super vigorous like all planted tanks, but very well. I made a reflector for the home depot fixtures out of cardboard and foil, and they seem to work well.

That's just about the cheapest I've been able to do. Minus the cost of the bulbs, if I were to do four of these set-ups it would cost 144 and give me 240w of 10k light.I think that almost 60cents per watt is pretty good.

Though I'd recommend switching to t5 fixtures and bulbs, less heat, more reliable and the new trend.
Good Luck!
 
Home depot lights, when unmodified, are horrible aquarium lights.

Reason for this is in how diffuse the light is. Aquarium lights when facing the tank toss the majority of light downwards, and would be terrible at lighting up your home. Home depot lights are meant to light up your home, casting the majority of their light out at angles.

That's not to say that you shouldn't use home depot lights, you should simply expect to "get what you pay for" if you don't go and make further modifications to them.

mrfeddown: One hagen t5 36" dual bulb fixture would cost you about the same and be a far more efficient light source.
 
Another point to add is that with modern bulbs kelvin does not neccessarily represent the spectrum that the bulb outputs so you can use a 18,000K light as long as it is full spectrum and outputs the correct levels of red and blue spectrum.
 
HMMM. I dont know what I was looking for as far as feedback except to maybe find a non name brand light half the price that does a good job.

VALEN- My tank has wallpaper on 3 of the 4 corners and there are several different light fixtures that are all different for 19 to 29 dollars, the fixtures are about the same as any one I already have in my tank. The only difference is that the tank lights are angled a little tighter. I am in a petsolution mag and dont see it, where is it the same price????

MrF, he has 2 36" inch double at about 75 watts a piece, of 10,000k and as I look in the petsolution mag I see a GLO t5 ho light 36" 1 bulb at 39 watts for 95 dollars. He got double the watts at less than half the price to grow plants with, I think he got a far better deal, I dont see the difference.

Unless there is somthing I dont get???

Any other imput would be nice to help me understand, and if I can find a light fixture with 4 bulbs would that not be good?
 
I'm not sure either, and since I don't have much experience in lighting I don't want to act like I know.

If I could find a fixture meant for aquariums for the same price as what I did I would do it. I realize the difference in the directed projection of the light, which is why I built the reflector to help with that, though I'm sure it's not as efficient as a factor reflector. The reason I did what I did was because I found single bulb 36 inch fixtures for around $60 that were built for aquariums, and my fixture, using cardboard, paint and foil that I already had was $36 per fixture for two bulbs.

Maybe you could provide a link? I didn't think the difference in t5 and t8 lighting prices was that drastic.
 
Yep, here you go.

Prices on this site include the bulbs. Considering the bulbs are about $20 a piece most places the fixtures come in even cheaper than the $144. And trust me, these fixtures will melt your eyes when it comes to directed light.

http://www.marineandreef.com/Hagen_...em_s/547.htm?gclid=CImX2oOZqpoCFcxL5QodwEh3zw


Here are a few more sites courtesyt of google:

http://www.google.com/products?hl=e...a=X&oi=product_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title

If you'll notice, even petsmart has these things for under $150 most of the time.



These fixtures are incredible, and the best part, they come with water tight sealer caps so evap won't blast out your balast as well as LONG extenders, so you could probably fit a 48" on your 6 foot tank easily (I can check that later today if you like). The 36 double and larger come with a plug in timer in the box most places. Keep an eye out though, they make double and single bulb versions of each light, make sure you're looking at the correct one. Single bulb t5 48" goes for about $90 most places. That'd eliminate the need for all the wallpaper, and special reflectors, etc.

Trust me, they are ridiculously bright.
 
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