cfl wattage for chaeto growth

[greg1786]

I'm at lowes buying a new compact fluorescent bulb to light my fuge and they have two size 6500k cfl. One is a bit smaller and is equivalent to 60Watts while the other is equivalent to 100 Watts. My initial instinct is to go with the 100 Watt but my question is, does the wattage matter and if so is more wattage better ? does it provide more light a greater depths in the water or will the chaeto do better under less wattage ? thanks in advance. -Greg


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[danil]

With enough nutrients in your water it will grow with any light. If it's not growing, receding or getting white you have LNS and should probably take it out feed more and pay more attention to your corals.

 

[greg1786]

With enough nutrients in your water it will grow with any light. If it's not growing, receding or getting white you have LNS and should probably take it out feed more and pay more attention to your corals.

Actually its doing fine right now just growing slowly and after speaking with several people on RC and the owner of my lfs I was told the spectrum of my bulb was too low. I pay plenty of attention to my corals I have great growth and color out of all of them in my sps dominated mixed reef. I'm not sure what that had to do at all with my question especially considering I'm not lighting my DT with a cfl bulb. Just a simple answer to my question will suffice , I didnt ask for my ability to care for or pay attention to my reef to be questioned but thanks for that anyway


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[grcforce327]

With enough nutrients in your water it will grow with any light. If it's not growing, receding or getting white you have LNS and should probably take it out feed more and pay more attention to your corals.

This^^^^^^^^^^

I think my sump light is either 24w or 36w(can't remember),but chaeto be growin' ! If my nutrients are low,I feed more!:dance:

 

[auburngrad]

i had a 18 watt 5000kelvin cfl bulb over my fuge. my cheato virtually dissapeared. i switched to a 18 watt par 38 led spotlight bulb. and whatever was left of my cheato came back with a vengeance. i literally went from a couple strands to a soccer ball clump in a month

 

[rrasco]

I used to have a 5000K 13w (actual, not equivalent) and my chaeto would do nothing but grow cyano. It stayed green, just covered in cyano. I switched to a 2700K 23w (again, actual) and the stuff is growing out of control. I cut it down to a tennis ball size and within a week or two it was the size of a basketball.

Wavelength and intensity are important.

 

[a.browning]

I use a 75w equivilant 6500K CFL bulb with great results!

 

[OkStudent]

I use a full spectrum around 5k 40 Watt cfl and chaeto is growing fast. Thinking about a 60 watt cfl grow bulb. Amazon 18$ with shipping. I've used lower wattage before and it grew ok.

 

[johnike]

5100K CF floodlight bulb here, love it.

 

[greg1786]

I ended up with a 60watt cfl 6500k equivalent to 100 watts. I haven't been able to see any difference in chaeto though cause I got a bad dino explosion...thanks for replys tho everyone


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[OkStudent]

60 W of CFL is equal to about 250 W of incandescent lighting. That should work.

 

[rainmkr07]

100w 6500k all the way!

 

[pangetikaw]

I agree with 6500 check this out from melevs reef http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html

 

[rrasco]

The reason I chose 2700K is because that has shown the best results with an ATS.

I think wattage is more of a factor than spectrum when people have problems growing. Many have reported 2700K, 5000K, 6500K all work well. The common factor is higher wattage bulbs.