Anyone having succes with spiral light for fuge locally - Menards/Lowes/etc.?

[llebcire]

Looking to pick one up and didn't know if one was available around town that you're having great success with?

Standard socket spiral fluorescent for a clamp on fixture.

Brand and part #?

Lowes/Wal-Mart/Menards/etc?

Thanks!

 

[troyman]

should work you dont need alll that much light

 

[llebcire]

Yeah but I'm curious as to what local reefers have found that works well, I ran one in the system that I tore down.

If I remember, there's usually a dozen or so choices between the stores, and the manufacturers often don't list the kelvin of the lamps.

Hoping that someone can save me some time and point me to a particular bulb that is working well.

Thanks!

 

[davidm199]

may sure u get the DAYLIGHT one they are bright blue

 

[vikubz]

Walmart has daylight bulbs that are 6500K. My chaeto seems to like it.

 

[SlukBunWalla]

There's a really long convoluted thread about this somewhere...in which Melev shows through experiment that a 5100K bulb is best (for him)

I've also read here several times that people have a HUGE boost in growth when they switched to cheap incandescent light bulbs.

Basically...I don't think you need anything fancy. Go warm with the bulb. 6700 K will work, but redder is better...

I'll see if I can dig up the thread...

 

[SlukBunWalla]

Well here's a Melev link...

http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html

 

[llebcire]

Here's what I ended up with, btw, from WalMart.

Says 6500 but seems a bit blue to me - we'll see if anything grows!

 

[vikubz]

I'm using the same one and I'm getting some good growth. Nitrates finally headed down.

 

[llebcire]

What's everyone using for lighting times?

I'm running opposite of my 10k's - 9 pm to 1 pm or 16 hours and with my recent hitchiker it'll be over cheato.

I believe I could go 24 hours, but I read somewhere that macros do better with a small break, some suggested as little as 2 hours of darkness was all that was needed.

 

[vikubz]

I'm doing a similar lighting schedule. Without going down and looking, I'd guess I've got about a 6 hr period with lights off.

 

[leeweber85]

I tried the bulb melev recommends and it grew extremely slow for me. I had it in the sump running 24/7 which could have been part of the reason. It used to grow like mad when it was in the display under halides.

 

[llebcire]

As of yet, I'm not seeing any growth.

I have a bryopsis outbreak hogging the nutrients and I have a light bioload with a fresh tank so little if any nitrates.

 

[matt the fiddler]

so, if I am exposing my algae only to my 20K halides... could that be slowing the growth?

Matt