Lights

[architect1]

I went to the home depot and bought the lights from there. They are philips Plant & aquarium 18" 15 wat bulbs. Light out put 410 and the color is 2700K. They are a red/orange tint coloration is this ok? I have never used them and I'm afraid my plants will go down hill. please help

[RyanH]

I'm going to move your thread to the planted section where it will get more attention. Those planted guys are really reclusive and don't wander around the boards much. :D

-Ryan

[Dissident]

That is a little low K for Planted Tanks. The red/orange/pink are designed for flowering terresterial plants.

You can find those bulbs upto 5500K online. The source I have gotten them from discontinued them.

[Westie]

I have a couple on one of my tanks. I change out the bulbs to life-glo's and aqua glo's. The color is a lot better and had more 'k's than those regular bulbs. Is bulb right for a flourescent?

[architect1]

yeah I went from the aquaglows at 18,000k now to these like 2000k witch sucks so i will put my old blubs back in.

[diablocanine]

Stay below 10000k. Look at Big Al's, they sell a lot of different bulb types.

[architect1]

Big alls Is to exspensive. i'm trying to avoid them.

[Alight]

Home Depot has 5000K bulbs. Look at their philips bulb selection. Their 5000 K bulbs make my Discus look great, and the plants do very well with these.

They also are very inexpensive. You can usually get 2 for $5 american.

[architect1]

Thats what I bought but they are the philips 2000k bulbs for plants. there 5 buchs each hear.

[Alight]

If you don't like the color, take them back and get the Daylight bulbs (they will say 5000K on the package). They are just as good for plants, and the fish will look better.

[architect1]

I don't know why but are homedepot sucks in canada and they did not have anything even close to 4000k They all looked at me like whats that. There dumb as fence posts. So I went to big alls and bought some good bulbs at 6700k and I love there color.

[nacra99]

your 6700K should be pretty suitable.

I know its a bit late to mention, since your already bought from Big Al's, but sometimes your LFS or Petstore chains may have lighting for cheap. It might be worth a shot. Temps around the vicinity of 5000K - 6000K is prefect for plants.