# Right lights for my 10 gallon? 120 watt or 28 watts?



## Haeun (Oct 19, 2006)

I recently replaced the lights in my 10 gallon tank. I'm not sure if what I'm doing with it is right.
I am not sure exactly what plants I have in there (*sheepish* Forgot their names) but here are pictures. Hopefully someone can ID them.






















I put in light bulbs that use 14 watts but gives off 60 watts. "60 watts replacement". Energy saver.1 Am not sure if they count as 14 watts or as 60 watts.















I have two of those in. Would that be 120 watts for a 10 gallon (12 watts per gallon) or would it be 28 watts for a 10 gallon (2.8 watts per gallon)? If it's 120, that would be overkill, I assume? Not sure!








I'm very confused.

Also, I am making a CO2 system (DIY) and have everything but the mixture set up. This is the right course to take, yes?


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

The one on the left is proably Ludwigia repens.

And since WPG is counted in fluorescent watts, you'll have 28 watts. The coiled bulbs coupled with the fact that the reflectors in that hood are very inefficient will give you less light. I'd venture to guess somewhere around 18-22watts of real light. That, over a 10 gallon tank, will give you low-to-moderate lighting conditions. 

Don't try any glosso or HC carpets anytime soon. =/

edit: With that kind of lighting, CO2 injection will help, but is not critical. You might be able to get away with dosing Excel...but hey, if you are willing to do DIY CO2 then all the better!


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## Haeun (Oct 19, 2006)

epicfish said:


> The one on the left is proably Ludwigia repens.


Thanks for the IDing.



epicfish said:


> And since WPG is counted in fluorescent watts, you'll have 28 watts. The coiled bulbs coupled with the fact that the reflectors in that hood are very inefficient will give you less light. I'd venture to guess somewhere around 18-22watts of real light. That, over a 10 gallon tank, will give you low-to-moderate lighting conditions.


Might have figured. But do you think you can explain why coiled bulbs and the reflectors are inefficient? Any advise to make it more efficient?
So if I get two 25 watt lights (50 total), would that be okay or a little too much? Would injecting CO2 with higher lights be better?


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Haeun said:


> Thanks for the IDing.
> 
> Might have figured. But do you think you can explain why coiled bulbs and the reflectors are inefficient? Any advise to make it more efficient?
> So if I get two 25 watt lights (50 total), would that be okay or a little too much? Would injecting CO2 with higher lights be better?


Think of a regular linear fluorescent bulb. Half the light comes out of the bottom, and approximately half comes out of the other half of the bulb. Say you have total loss of the light that is emitted from the side of the bulb facing away from the tank. That's a 50% efficiency.

Now look at the coiled bulbs you have. You have a ton of light loss due to light being emitted into the middle of coiled tube...the light just goes to the middle and gets lost. It never gets into your tank. That's at least 50% of the light loss already. Now, since the tube is coiled, half of the remaining light emitted from the outside of the coiled tube is lost since it doesn't face the tank. So that's 75% light loss.

As for the reflectors, a paraboilic, or multi-faceted reflector helps re-direct the light emitted away from the tank back into the tank. I think the reflectors in your hood are prety much flat. Light goes away from the fluorescent bulb towards the reflector, and since it's flat, a lot of it gets reflected back to the light bulb again...pretty useless.

That's why T5 bulbs (aside from metal halides) are becoming more mainstream in reef and planted tanks. The bulb diameter is so small that reflectors can be designed to cover a lot of surface area to re-direct more light into the tank. Also, due to their small diameters, they're more efficient.

Back to your question, two of those 23-25W bulbs might be a little much if you're not fertilizing or dosing with Excel, or having CO2 injection. I'm not sure of those bulbs will fit in anyways. I've read somewhere that someone tried it and it melted their hood! 

Injecting CO2 at any light level is good, but at higher light levels, it becomes a necessity.


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## Haeun (Oct 19, 2006)

epicfish said:


> Think of a regular linear fluorescent bulb. Half the light comes out of the bottom, and approximately half comes out of the other half of the bulb. Say you have total loss of the light that is emitted from the side of the bulb facing away from the tank. That's a 50% efficiency.
> 
> Now look at the coiled bulbs you have. You have a ton of light loss due to light being emitted into the middle of coiled tube...the light just goes to the middle and gets lost. It never gets into your tank. That's at least 50% of the light loss already. Now, since the tube is coiled, half of the remaining light emitted from the outside of the coiled tube is lost since it doesn't face the tank. So that's 75% light loss.
> 
> ...


Wow, thanks. As for the 25 watt bulbs, the hood says that 25 watts is the max I can put. Is putting the max bad? Should I just go look for two 20 watt-ish bulbs?
T5 bulbs? Where can I find those? Just in normal fish stores?



> As for the reflectors, a paraboilic, or multi-faceted reflector helps re-direct the light emitted away from the tank back into the tank. I think the reflectors in your hood are prety much flat. Light goes away from the fluorescent bulb towards the reflector, and since it's flat, a lot of it gets reflected back to the light bulb again...pretty useless.


Edit: Oooh, I get it.







vs


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## Jimbo205 (Feb 2, 2006)

You might spray paint the interior of your hood (THE BLACK PART) with flat white when the hood is dry (Keep out of tank for 2-3 days until completely dry I think.)

I have been told that this helps increase the amount of light that gets into the tank before you go to the next step of getting a different hood or reflector.

Just for information purposes, you may want to check out Compact Fluorescent Lighting Kits that would be ahsupply or ask OneMindsEye about lighting 10 Gallon Tanks on a budget. He is pretty good with that. :smile:


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Whoa!! Look at that photo of the lights again. It shows clearly that the reflector redirects a lot of the light from the sides of the bulb to the aquarium. It is polished metal - not the greatest job of polishing, but still better than white paint, which diffuses the light so it is scattered and not redirected towards the tank.

The warning label that says 25 watts max is referring to incandescent bulbs, which waste most of the watts as heat, and if you used 50 watts, for example, the hood would get too hot. But fluorescent bulbs don't waste nearly as much watts as heat, so you could use a lot higher wattage bulbs than 25 watts. Your problem might be that the higher wattage coiled fluorescent bulbs are also larger in diameter, so might not fit inside the reflectors.

I would judge the 28 watts you have to be equivalent to around 20 watts of linear fluorescent tube. That, in my opinion would be moderate to low light for a ten gallon tank. If you can find screw in bulbs that consist of a single loop of tube - like two parallel tubes - and the wattage is still 28 watts total, that would be more efficient, and would, in my opinion be the equivalent of 28 watts of linear fluorescent tube. And, that would be a moderate level of light for a 10 gallon, good to grow most any plant.


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## Haeun (Oct 19, 2006)

hoppycalif said:


> Whoa!! Look at that photo of the lights again. It shows clearly that the reflector redirects a lot of the light from the sides of the bulb to the aquarium. It is polished metal - not the greatest job of polishing, but still better than white paint, which diffuses the light so it is scattered and not redirected towards the tank.
> 
> The warning label that says 25 watts max is referring to incandescent bulbs, which waste most of the watts as heat, and if you used 50 watts, for example, the hood would get too hot. But fluorescent bulbs don't waste nearly as much watts as heat, so you could use a lot higher wattage bulbs than 25 watts. Your problem might be that the higher wattage coiled fluorescent bulbs are also larger in diameter, so might not fit inside the reflectors.
> 
> I would judge the 28 watts you have to be equivalent to around 20 watts of linear fluorescent tube. That, in my opinion would be moderate to low light for a ten gallon tank. If you can find screw in bulbs that consist of a single loop of tube - like two parallel tubes - and the wattage is still 28 watts total, that would be more efficient, and would, in my opinion be the equivalent of 28 watts of linear fluorescent tube. And, that would be a moderate level of light for a 10 gallon, good to grow most any plant.


So I'm good to go with the reflectors?

Alright, I'll start hunting for parallel fluorescent tubes in 28 watts. If I want to reach a high level of light though, how much wattage am I looking at?


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

35+ watts...but you'd be hard-pressed to find screw in bulbs of that higher wattage that will fit the hood.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Murphy's Law dictates that if you use a screw-in bulb with the parallel tubes, one tube will be behind the other when the bulb is screwed all the way in, and backing it out a bit causes it to go off. It won't even matter how you orient the socket, Murphy's Law always takes precedence over such mundane physical things.


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