Screw-in Type of Compact Flourescent. Your thoughts?

[Sean]

I swear I don't work for this company or anything.....I just saw this and I would like to have your opinion. If you strung a bunch of these.

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/healthye...speccomfl.html

Thanks for your feedback.

[ronrca]

So far, I think they are cool (no pun intended) for replacing incandescents in your home! They do give off a lot of light. For example in our bedroom we have a 3 lamp ceiling fan. I removed the 3 incandescents with 1 compact screw-in fluorescent and it gives off as much or more light.

For planted tanks, not sure though! They should be fine though. I would like to see more specs like lumen ratings and color sprectrum graphs! They have a great CRI rating (Color rendering index), which means that the higher the CRI number, the truer the colors will be seen under this light. For comparision, a cool white fluorescent CRI is 87! The Kelvin is very good also! Naturally, less power consumption is a good thing!

[Sean]

I saw the 93 CRI and 5500K and thought this looks ok. If the 30watt is equivalent to a 150 watt bulb, put 3 or 4 of these over a 55 would probably work pretty well!

I was thinking about delaying the time they turn on and off to 1 an hour! You know that real sun affect. Turn #1 on, let it sit and so on. Same at the end of the day, start shutting them down slowly.

Sorry just a thought!

Thanks for the input,

Sean.

[ronrca]

I agree! I realize that the low wattage rating sound like less light but this is not the case. Wattage refers to power consumption not light output.

The sun rise/set is old man! ;D I already stimulate it in my plant tank. It is a cool idea!

Btw, are those prices in Cdn or US?

[giroux68]

If these are better than the regular ones you can get at Home Depot, they's be great. I tried 4 of the HD type and got more algea than I thought possible.

[yellow sub]

I have used the full spectrum type at Home Depot, with good results. I put them in a 10 gallon with a cheapo hood that I had laying around. The only drawback I have found is that they don't hold up to mosture very well.

In this tank I am growing java moss. Which, I know is not a hard plant to grow...but I harvest a quit a bit out every week which I use to supplment feed my uaru's.

Stephen

[dchisenh]

Hey Everyone,

This is my first time posting on this website and have been looking around for the past few days trying to learn about Discus. But, I have had saltwater tanks for a long time now and since lighting is very important on them, I have done quite a bit of research on the subject.

The 93 CRI 5500K screw-in type compact fluorescent lamps are pretty good for planted freshwater tanks (I have two over a 38 gallon ropefish tank) but because the main spectral peaks are around the reddish/yellowish range, they tend to encourage plant growth to be leggy and sparse. A color temperature of 6500K approximates noon-time sun and is more crisp white in appearance. Because of the increased blue in the spectrum, this tends to cause plants to become more bushy and full in appearance. Also, I personally like the bright white quality of the light.

I currently am running three dual-bulb workshop striplights from Home Depot over my 75 gallon saltwater reef, with two containing two 6500K 40 watt daylight tubes and one containing two actinic 03 bulbs (a very blue bulb, mainly for coral photosynthesis as well as the 'neon glow' of most corals and saltwater fish). One or two of these fixtures from Home Depot (Cooper Lighting, model 9000, $8 or $9 a piece) and a double pack of the 6500K bulbs (Phillips F400X 40 watt Alto collection, around $3 for two) should be sufficient for a 55 gallon tank.

If you would rather go with a compact fluorescent fixture instead, you can get a Lights of America 65 watt 6500K security light from Walmart for about $25, it is model 6065 white and the bulb is a 4U65W-D. It supposedly produces 1000 watts of light and only uses 65 watts of electricity. It already comes in a pendant-like housing.

Hope this helps those of you out there who are trying to save a buck or two (like myself )

-Dan

[fossil]

Hey dchisenh welcome to the forum and you posted a lot of great info there, I'll be the first one to say thanks, 'thanks.'

[ronrca]

Thanks Dan for that good info! It is wonderful that everyone contributes their experiences for others to learn.

Just a small correction though Dan, nothing personal! Sunlight at noon is around 5000K, Sky overcast is around 6500K and sky extremely blue is around 25000K believe it or not. A thing to remember about Kelvin or color temperature, is that it refers to the color of the light source or what the color looks like/what kind of atmosphere it creates. Like you mentioned, the more blue the color, the higher the kelvin. That is why sky overcast and extremely blue sky are higher K's than actual sunlight which tends lean towards more yellow than blue, hence 5000K.

I hth!

[dchisenh]

Hey Fossil and Ronrca

Thanks for the welcome. ;D Thanks for the correctin Ronrca. I was just letting y'all know what I've learned through saltwater, and in general, when it's dealing with the photosynthesis of corals, 6500K is considered "noon" because it's probably the lowest Kelvin rating you can go and still get enough blue for the zooanthellae (the symbiotic algae in the photosynthetic corals). 5000K is the absolute minimum for coral photosynthesis, but in my opinion, that color temperature supports algae more than coral growth. Since my 5500k screw-in compact fluorescents cause my plant growth to be leggy, and since a bluer spectrum does cause plant growth to be more dense and bushy, I would think a 6500K bulb would be a great choice for planted tanks to bring out the colors in your discus and encourage denser plant growth.

Of course, I'm just a biologist and not a physicist, so when it comes to numbers, I am prone to error.

-Dan

[Sean]

When I posted I was looking for people who used the screw-in kind. That was the focus really. I since have found multiple suppliers that have 6500k, which I am going to purchase. I like the idea of how small the screw in types are so I can maximize my lightin over a 55gallon.

Thanks for all the posts,

Sean.

[ronrca]

Thank you Dan! That is very interesting to know! I have no clue about saltwater so any info is welcome. Something about Kelvin from the sun that I would really like to know! Does it make a difference where you are on earth? Is the kelvin different at the equator than here in Canada? One would think not however I have come across different values for sunlight at noon, like 5000K and 6500K. Can anyone comment?

I really like the info about coral photosynthesis! I didnt know that!

[dchisenh]

You're very welcome Ronrca I'm not really sure how they determine the Kelvin temps for different areas, I was wondering if it differed by latitude myself. It's a big deal in saltwater, but not so much when it comes to freshwater, I guess.

Sean, I have used the screw ones and they do work well. If you can get those 6500K screw in ones, that should work just great for ya. I bet you'll like the crispness of the white light they'll produce.

-Dan

[dchisenh]

Oh, I almost forgot. When it comes to saltwater, there has been a lot of talk about extremely high Kelvin lamps. 10,000K is a very white light with a good amount of blue. The 20,000K lamps supposedly contain more blue than that and has enough to make your corals glow fluorescently. The "50,000K" lamps are pretty new and supposedly combine the whiteness of the 10,000K and the blue of the 20,000K to produce the ultimate lamp. I don't think the Kelvin rating is actually 50,000, but it's a trade-name type deal. If you go to reefcentral.com and do a search on them and anything else you want to know about lighting, I know you'll get a LOT of information. It's one of the main things people discuss in that forum, and it is pretty interesting.

-Dan

[ronrca]

50000K? Yikes!

I had the opportunity in e-mailing Scott Hieber. Im not sure if anyone knows him or not. He posts a lot on Aquatic Plant Digest (biotypical may recognizie him). I asked him that same question. His answer:
At the equator, the Kelvin of sunlight is around 5000K however people tend to use higher kelvin because of looks (this is based on tropical plants, not salt water tanks).

I love his next answer (I hope he does not mind quoting him)!

the good news is your plants care much more about how much light they get than what color it is. Even more than that, they care about how much CO2 they get.

I guess all I can say is, 'nuff said!

HTH!