Cfl Bulbs... What's My Watt Per Gallon? :s

[Channti]

Alright, so I checked out my lighting fixtures in my tanks, and I picked up some regular CFL daylight bulbs from the hardware store. They fit perfectly into my fixtures, and they were 1/4 of the price of the aquarium CFL bulbs.

the box I have is labelled 6,500K output per bulb, 11 watts each. I have two bulbs in the 5 gallon tank.

I feel like i have too much light. Does this mean I have 11 watts of light (therefore 2.2 watts per gallon) on the tank, or 22 watts on 5 gallons (therefore 4.4 watts per gallon)?

They also had a 2,500 K output bulb. Would Two 2,500K output bulbs be better?

I'm afraid I'm going to fry the plants in my tank.

 

[nosoup4you]

well, you have 4.4 watts per gallon but with those bulbs you are going to get a lot of wasted light so it'll actually be much lower. Are you dosing Co2/ferts?

 

[Channti]

I just want to be able to keep the basics. I've got a low-light 46 gallon tank with Cabomba, Hygrophila, Wisteria, etc. The plan was just to fill the tank with cuttings. Maybe put in a java fern on each side, and be done with it. I want something basic, but good looking.

I can dose Nutrafin PlantGro. No CO2.

 

[nosoup4you]

Tbh, if all you want are java ferns or some other low-light plant, you could just run the one bulb. I fear you might have issues at that wattage if you aren't running co2.