You might be suprised at the out come! Lights,

fishkid13

fishkid13

Active Member
Sense being on this board (which rocks by the way!) almost all the tanks have some type of MH on them. Well when I was looking at the prices my head just went
. I have heard/read that to keep corals going good and healthy you MH or some other powerful light; so I was worried that I couldn't keep certain corals sense I didn't have that type of light untill I heard from a friend at our LFS and said about a fellow reefer who grew corals like mad with just energy-bulbs. Yes you heard correctly energy-bulbs like the ones at home depot and any other store really.
Yes these:
Attachment 222806
The guy said that you would need the full day bulbs.
I will post pictures of his tanks later! Any comments are great accepted.
 
pbnj

pbnj

Member
I think the number of those you'll need to keep a successful mixed reef would be equivalent to the quantity it would take to light-up a Vegas billboard.

When I started my reef, I added two track-lights with 8 of these bulbs to the back of my canopy to supplement my four T5 bulbs. The SPS frags I kept towards the back (under these lights) all turned brown. The light barely reached the bottom of my 75g tank.
 
jimvette1

jimvette1

Member
The highest kelvin rating I could find is 6700k with a wattage of 100.
Seems to me I would have to agree with pbnj.
I don't see how they would be powerful enough to penetrate the depth of the aquarium. IMO
 
natclanwy

natclanwy

Active Member
I use one of those bulbs to light my fuge and my chaeto, coraline, and a bunch of kenya tree frags grow great in there. I would say you can keep some low light coral under them like mushrooms, maybe a few zoas (will probably turn brown) and kenya trees but other than that I don't think you have a chance with any LPS corals.
 
scsinet

scsinet

Active Member
Originally Posted by JimVette1
http:///forum/post/3013391
The highest kelvin rating I could find is 6700k with a wattage of 100.
I think you mean 100 equivalent, which is about 23w.
Believe me, you can get them bigger. If you go to specialty lighting dealers, they get big. The one I run on my fuge is a 85w screw in CFL, which is a 350w equivalent. This thing is nearly a foot high and 4" across.
However, they still lack the PAR/Intensity of lights specificially designed for the aquarium, and using reflectors to aim the light in to the square pattern that we need for our tanks is difficult.
To the OP, there are ways of getting good lighting for not as much money as you'd pay for a commercial fixture, but you have to do a little bit of fabricating and DIYing. By and large though, your lighting system will be one of the largest expenses in your aquarium. Furthermore, this type of experimenting is best left to reefers who have been around the block a few times and know what they are doing. No offense, but reefing is a whole lot easier when you remove as many variables as possible. If something isn't doing well... there are so many reasons why... water quality, agression/hubandry, elements, calcium, yada yada... adding lights as a possible reason before you get your feet wet
is only going to make it harder on you.
 
jimvette1

jimvette1

Member
SCSInet;3013798 said:
I think you mean 100 equivalent, which is about 23w.
I think you are confusing usage (23watts or power used) with lumen output of 100 watts.
A standard 120 V, 100 watt incandescent light bulb emits 1500–1700 lumens, while a standard 230 V model emits 1200–1400 lm.
A 23 watt compact fluorescent lamp emits about 1500 lm.The number of lumens produced per watt of power consumed is the wall-plug luminous efficacy of the source.
Click to expand...
 
scsinet

scsinet

Active Member
I was referring to your line that said this:
The highest kelvin rating I could find is 6700k with a wattage of 100

What I was saying is that when you mentioned that CFLs do not come bigger than 100w, I was clarifying that I thought you were referring to what is labeled on the packaging as the equivelant incandescent wattage, not the actual wattage consumed by the lamp.
Most home centers do not stock CFLs that produce more than 100w equivalent, so that's where I thought that perhaps you were getting your information from. If you meant 100w actual, then my assumption was mistaken.

Of course if I had checked your profile prior to responding, I probably would have realized
 
jimvette1

jimvette1

Member
Originally Posted by SCSInet
http:///forum/post/3013798
I think you mean 100 equivalent, which is about 23w.
Believe me, you can get them bigger. If you go to specialty lighting dealers, they get big. The one I run on my fuge is a 85w screw in CFL, which is a 350w equivalent. This thing is nearly a foot high and 4" across.
However, they still lack the PAR/Intensity of lights specificially designed for the aquarium, and using reflectors to aim the light in to the square pattern that we need for our tanks is difficult.
To the OP, there are ways of getting good lighting for not as much money as you'd pay for a commercial fixture, but you have to do a little bit of fabricating and DIYing. By and large though, your lighting system will be one of the largest expenses in your aquarium. Furthermore, this type of experimenting is best left to reefers who have been around the block a few times and know what they are doing. No offense, but reefing is a whole lot easier when you remove as many variables as possible. If something isn't doing well... there are so many reasons why... water quality, agression/hubandry, elements, calcium, yada yada... adding lights as a possible reason before you get your feet wet
is only going to make it harder on you.

Originally Posted by SCSInet
http:///forum/post/3013820
I was referring to your line that said this:
What I was saying is that when you mentioned that CFLs do not come bigger than 100w, I was clarifying that I thought you were referring to what is labeled on the packaging as the equivelant incandescent wattage, not the actual wattage consumed by the lamp.
Most home centers do not stock CFLs that produce more than 100w equivalent, so that's where I thought that perhaps you were getting your information from. If you meant 100w actual, then my assumption was mistaken.

Of course if I had checked your profile prior to responding, I probably would have realized

Hey,no harm,no foul

Sometimes I just try to put it in terms that everyone can relate to without getting to technical.
Your first assumption was correct and I should have said 100 watt equivalent.
 
C

cmaxwell39

Guest
Originally Posted by fishkid13
http:///forum/post/3014634
Attachment 222856
Attachment 222855
He also used purple fouresent bulbs
All of the corals that I see in that tank are very low light demanding corals. I only see mushrooms, leathers and green star polyps. If you want a softie tank, then you may be able to get away with these bulbs, but if you want to keep any LPS or SPS these lights just are not going to cut it. As has already been adviced, if you don't want to be limited to what you can keep, look into MH or T5 lighting.
 
C

cmaxwell39

Guest
What you have labeled as zoos in your first post with pics looks like green star polyps to me. I may be wrong though. FWIW I have kept GSP under a NO florescent bulb before for a couple of months. I would not recommend it, but they do not require a whole lot of light.
 
fishkid13

fishkid13

Active Member
Originally Posted by cmaxwell39
http:///forum/post/3015034
All of the corals that I see in that tank are very low light demanding corals. I only see mushrooms, leathers and green star polyps. If you want a softie tank, then you may be able to get away with these bulbs, but if you want to keep any LPS or SPS these lights just are not going to cut it. As has already been adviced, if you don't want to be limited to what you can keep, look into MH or T5 lighting.
Those were the pictures from just my cam, he has come monti's growing and a bunch of other things in his fish room. I will try to see if I can get pic's.
Originally Posted by cmaxwell39
http:///forum/post/3015035
What you have labeled as zoos in your first post with pics looks like green star polyps to me. I may be wrong though. FWIW I have kept GSP under a NO florescent bulb before for a couple of months. I would not recommend it, but they do not require a whole lot of light.
I relized it too right after I did it, and was to lazy to change it.
 
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