Would this bulb work for my tank?

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
M

Mystus Redtail

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jun 8, 2007
2,154
3
68
Fishing in Wisconsin
I am new to bulbs and lighting, forever I've just used whatever came in the fixtures, I'm trying to learn as much as possible, my goal is good plant lighting, no excess algae, and doing it all at as low of a price a possible. Right now I have some "unknown" plants in my 55, I was told they would flourish in low light condtions, but they sprout and wither continuously which makes me think that they're lacking good light. I have no idea what bulbs are in there now, other than they're 24". I've been doing some reading on here and I think what I need is something around 6500k, right? or should I go higher? It's a standard 55 gallon.

What do you think of this bulb?

http://www.bulbs.com/eSpec.aspx?ID=12958&Ref=Category&RefId=13

These are the plants I'm talking about, I'm also having a terrible time keeping them rooted, they did fine for months, but now keep finding a way to float around the tank. THE JAGS ARE NO LONGER IN THE TANK. Just a little con, and an orange pike.

n184804728_31949868_3600.jpg
 
The 6500K bulbs are a good full spectrum daylight bulb, but if I understand correctly what you need is higher wattage, not higher Kelvin rating. You might try looking into upgrading to a two tube 48" shop light. They are farly cheap and would give you a lot more light. Good Luck.
 
That's sort of what got this started, I was looking at a thread about what types of bulbs to put in those fixtures. I actually run one of those on my 180 and it'd be nice to upgrade that one too.

So more wattage to penetrate the depth of the water? I've read that I should keep it to about a watt per gallon total to avoid an algae problem, correct?
 
since youre using normal output fluorescent bulbs, i would go for about 2wpg. when using regular bulbs like these, i would consider high lighting to be about 4wpg. i think 2wpg should good
 
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