Confused

[danipsp]

ok i had a incadesent hood
and i was aiming for 3 wpg which is 30 watts for my 10g
i bought 2 compact flourecent :
6500k 800 lumines
but it says that 15 CF compares to 60 incadesent
i have another 10g with just a regular flourecent tube 15watt
will thee two CFs be the same as 2x15 watt florecents

 

[George Farmer]

Ignore incandescent wattage. The watts per gal. guide refers to fluourescent lighting with effective reflectors.

CF = compact fluorescent. 15w CF will produce approx. same light as a regular 15w T8 fluorescent, the difference may be the reflectors.

 

[danipsp]

actually the refleectors in the incadesent hood are from metal shiny silver metal
my florecent hood has just white plastic reflectors

 

[confusion]

I read somewhere once (probably means take this with a grain of salt) that with a white reflector, you get about 85% of the light reflected, and with a polished metal reflector, you get around 93%. The numbers may be a % or two off, but in the end, it wasn't nearly as big of a difference as I expected.