Light up!!!

Everyone knows that fishtank lights are sooo expensive but do you realy need one?I stop at a hardware store and saw an 18 w for R11!!!!!!!Can i buy this light or do i need to get a proper aquarium light?

 

Light up!!

I find that fish lights are different from a normal light.They cost alot more because the normal lights don't have what the fish lights have.

 

Welcome to the rip-off that is aquarium specific tubes.

You can buy the ones from hardware stores, but they'll probably be cool white or somewhere 2000-4000k. Try get daylight tubes which should be marked at 6500k or 865

 

thankx but i would like to know if it will efect the fish in any way?

 

such weak light wont really cater for plant growth dude, get stronger light if you want plants to thrive.

 

so its fine but not the best choice

 

fine to see your fish, not a good choice for any plant growth unless all you have is "low light" plants

 

and the water and contents tend to get a yellow glow to rather shop around and get a light with higher rating +4000

 

Aquatic lights go a s high as 18K Kelvin

 

20k actually

 

You can use normal bulbs from a hardware store. Do you have the lampholders and the ballast? Those are also cheaper from hardware stores. Actually, go to a lighting store - bigger selection and pretty much same prices as hardware store. Try and get lights with a colour temperature of 6500K (normally labeled "daylight"). It should be fine.

Fish don't care what lights you have, as long as it is not too bright.

 

ferryman, when he says 18w it is just 18w because of the lenght of the tube, that would probably be a 2ft tube, if you buy a 4ft t8 from a lfs or from a hardware store, the watts would be the same. A white tube bought from lfs would also give a yellow color to the water, any white tube will... To combat this i always add a blue tube aswell for that crisp white look. As neil said, if you get a tube with the correct k rating the plants will enjoy it, if you add enough though

 

exactly like abstract, neil and laure said then.

the thing is, for fish, you dont need to worry much about light intensity, so if one 18watt osram tube (usually 11rand at builders) is what you got to see the fish with its fine) but if you are trying to cater for plants getting two tubes or somesuch would be prefered, the more intense light for hight light requirement plants, and if the plants you keep are low light requirement, then don't sweat it much. but like said above, try to get (or additionally get) a high kelvin rating tube (aswell) cuz the normal tubes do give a yellowy glo to a tank, and high temp light (blue) will give you a better look to the display

 

another thing to look at is the lumens of a globe, not if you want to just keep fish, but for planted tanks. That is why t5 is so much better than t8, also the reason why energy savers dont work that good for larger and deep tanks, they dont have that penatrating power of lets say a t5 tube