what light from depot do i get for fuge?

[peckhead]

i have a 2.5g fuge...what kinda light should i get from home depot? just a regular grow light? how many watts?

 

[lion_crazz]

When I used my wet/dry as a refugium on my 75 gallon tank, I just used one of the $10 spiral bulb lamps. The good thing about those is that they do not give off any heat, and you can get a nice amount of wattage on them. The one that I used was a 65 watt bulb. You can get a 15, 30, 65, and 90 I believe.

 

[reefforbrains]

instead of Depot, hit walmart, they have little screw in 20w 6500k's twin pack for like 8 bucks. They also have 6500k 24inch t-8 for like 4 bucks

 

[peckhead]

i dont no anything about lighting...but will wallmart have everything i need to get the light going? like the metal part that i can clamp on somehting and hang it above myfuge? where do i look for these bulds... is 20w enough????

 

[reefforbrains]

for a 2.5 gallon yes, and Yes walmart will have everything, look in the Harware section. Also read each bulb carefully, soft white flouresent(common soft white) bulbs are in the 4100k spectrum, totally useless for your tank. Make sure even if it SAYS daylight you read somewhere on the package it says 6500k minimum.

 

[peckhead]

ok so all i need to look for is 6500k daylight bulbs?

 

[reefforbrains]

There are obviously different delivery methods from each bulb, but that is more like the torque to PUSH the light for deeper penetrating applications. Since you have a small tank depth isnt realy a concern for making the light push through down deep. You just need a 6500k, and with such a small area just about any wattage should be fine.
On larger apps the CRI and PV play into it, but thats all just symantic for your needs. Beware of anything that just says daylight, because thats just thier own labeling of it. Kelvin is the actual rating of the light output in terms of specific bands of the light spectrum. So it might not even say daylight, just be sure to look for 6500k Minimum.

 

[daninct]

I'd like to continue this if you all don't mind. What about LUMANs? I looked for these bulbs as I also have a small fuge I am starting. I can't find the "K" value on the packages. just watts and lumans. I see 1000 lumans and 800 lumans. Any idea if that is ok for a basic fuge to grow stuff?

 

[dude23455]

Lumens are just a unit of measure for the intensity of the light. The more lumens the brighter the light. They dont tell anything about the color spectrum like the kelvin scale does.

 

[daninct]

Thanks for the quick reply. I will try walmart again and look for the k's.