Compact Fluorescent 'Daylight' Bulbs

[Marty]

I picked up a couple Philips brand Mini Twister Compact Fluorescent bulbs from Home Depot yesterday for a light hood on a 10G tank.

The bulbs are said to be 'Daylight' colour (or 6500K colour temperature) and are 13W (60W incandescent equivalent) at 900 lumens.

My questions is... has anybody had any experience in using this type of bulb for growing plants???

I plan on using them in a 10G planted tank, and I figure two of these bulbs at 120W equivalent lumens should be more than enough to have lots of growth in a 10G.

Thoughts?? :well:

[Cgy_Betta_Guy]

havent used these particular bulbs but I did use some costco ones that were marked as 2700K on my 15G QT/hospital/plant nursery tank and had no problems with them.

[Vallisneria]

I use screw in CF daylight bulbs on 2 of my tanks(10&20g) and the plants are doing great. A great way to keep using those incandescent hoods instead of upgrading your lighting.

[Wackinator]

Hey, I used those same bulbs when I had a 20 gallon planted, and the 6500k were good for growing plants in my experience, the tank didnt bloom like crazy or anything but they were growing slowly.

I would definitely use them again!

[BettaFishMommy]

i'm running a spiral cfl on a lil 2.5 gal planted tank and i'm in there trimming plants at least once a week! lol. as mentioned, great bulbs for tanks with incandescent hoods - i used to run cfl bulbs on three 10 gals a couple years ago.

[fleshgear]

i use those bulbs in a few tanks, i think the only thing that is wrong with them is that they make the water look a little bit yellow. but other than appearance of the water they are fine for plants. but then again most 6500k bulbs do that. it seems like the cfl's cause the yellowing a little bit more

2 13w bulbs in a 10g tank is a lot of light. they might cause algae until you get a good balance of light, ferts, c02 (if any), plants, and fish

you could try 1 6700k bulb and 1 bright white cfl. that might make the water look cleaner. but it might not, i have never tried it

[BettaFishMommy]

i've seen cfls with different 'colours', and you don't have to settle for the yellowish tinge that some of these bulbs have. hang on a sec, let me go check what brand, etc the one i have is, since it isn't yellow at all (or at least my eyes are telling me it isn't, lol).

ok, it's a Noma and underneath Noma on the bulb base it says 'helical 13 watt'.

[Marty]

Great advice everyone thanks so much!

I find that many fluorescent lights (compacts or tubes) start to lose some colour over time and turn yellow.

Based on the advice from you guys I will use the spirals to setup a 10G planted tank based on this method: LINK

Now I just gotta find some good substrate that is shrimp friendly and a small foreground plant like Hemianthus callichtroides sp. 'cuba'

[Wackinator]

if your looking for a cheap substrate, i would go with playsand. I got a bag from Totem and it filled a 33 gallon, a 20 gallon, and a 10 gallon, and still got a lot left!

Also my cories enjoyed it, i wouldnt know about shrimp as they have a different sand in with them.

Edited August 26, 2010 by Wackinator

[AvianAquatics]

Yep, I definitely recommend Philips light! The only light I use for my planted tanks are strip light with Philips bulbs, either 2700, 5000, or 6500k. I personally like the 5000k and 6500k better since they look whitish instead of yellow. But if you like mess around a little, get one light at 2700k and the other at 5000k since I know some plant will grow faster with 2700k. Also I don't really like the dry start method. 2.6wpg with Co2 is plenty enough to grow HC and Glosso. And for substrate I use Fluourite sand. It's black colored which will bring out the color of your shrimp, small enough the shrimplets wouldn't go under, and excellent for growing plants. You just need 1 bag for a 10Gal, costs $30 at bigals.

[Kronosdelsol]

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Edited October 2, 2010 by Kronosdelsol

[Marty]

Check out my experiment using the dry start method. Make sure you really overdose with co2 (excel) when you start filling it with water. Slowly ween off of the excel until they do well. If they start yellowing the you are not giving enough co2.

Sand does not do well with HC in dry start. When you start filling it, the sand moves and it all floats up.

Jewels has a nice cfl picture showing the different temperatures.

Great post covering your experiments! Couldn't have asked for better info! :thumbs: