# incandescent daylight bulbs



## balloon_fish (May 26, 2005)

Hey everyone,
I was at walmart yesterday and i noticed they had those incandescent daylight bulbs and i was wondering if those were any good for plant growth? Also are halogen lights good for plant growth and do they come in differnt K ratings? Thanks in advance.


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## Simpte 27 (Jul 16, 2004)

Incandescent bulbs produce a great deal of heat and usually have very poor "good" light. Meaning the reflectors are poor and most of the light is wasted. I use 2 25 watt in an incandescent hood for a 10 gallon and it has too many dark spots. Unless the plants are directly under the bulbs, they don't usually do well.


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## balloon_fish (May 26, 2005)

ok cool, thanks for the reply


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## balloon_fish (May 26, 2005)

oh ya forgot to ask but how about the halogen lights? are those any good?


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## Simpte 27 (Jul 16, 2004)

Great for larger tanks. Not really cost effective for smaller ones.


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## MatPat (Mar 22, 2004)

balloon_fish said:


> oh ya forgot to ask but how about the halogen lights? are those any good?


I think Simpte 27 may have been thinking about metal halides versus Halogen.

Halogen lights get very hot! Even more so than incandescent lamps. I remember not to long ago, Halogen lamps were being blamed for starting house fires when curtains came into contact with the bulbs in the lamps. I think that is why halogen lamps have wire gaurds over the bulbs now.

Halogen lamps are also being used in some higher end microwaves to "brown" food. They must run hot to be able to do this! I would think their light spectrum is probably not very good either but I'm not positive on this.

The best lights from an economical and usable stand point are going to be flourescent lamps. You can find flourescents at most hardware stores and they are much cheaper there than at an LFS. They even have screw in flourescent lamps (6500K or so) at WalMart if your light has an incandescent socket on it. The screw ins are not the best flourescents available but I think they are better then incandescents or halogen.


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## balloon_fish (May 26, 2005)

i was just curious about those light bulbs, and i do have the screw in ones right now. Do you know where i can find a 30 to 40w screw in 6500k pc bulb?


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## Simpte 27 (Jul 16, 2004)

MatPat said:


> I think Simpte 27 may have been thinking about metal halides versus Halogen.
> 
> Halogen lights get very hot! Even more so than incandescent lamps. I remember not to long ago, Halogen lamps were being blamed for starting house fires when curtains came into contact with the bulbs in the lamps. I think that is why halogen lamps have wire gaurds over the bulbs now.
> 
> ...


Lol. See what happens when you post after a long night of work?!?!


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## shalu (Oct 1, 2004)

A quick web search revealed that Halogen lights typically delivers less than 20 lumens/watt, compare that to fluorescent/PCs typical 60-90 lumens/watt. Halogens are very similar to incandescent lights in terms of light efficiency: http://lightingdesignlab.com/articles/halogen/halogen.htm


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