Flourescent Bulb Choices

[Malkavian]

I'm in the process of devising a hanger to suspend a 18" light fixture over my itty bitty 2.5gal Betta tank. Currently it's not planted but I have java moss on the way to add some color, and may perhaps add something else smallish to stand out from the surface.

All my local petsmart had to offer were Hagen bulbs, but nearly none in the size I need (except for the marine ones!)

At any rate I was looking at the spectrums and noticed that of the 3 reccomended for plants (Flora, power, and life-glo I believe) they all had fairly drastically different spectra charts, so that confused me somewhat. Also not sure what kind of quality the Hagen bulbs are to begin with. If there's a better brand for in the same price range I'm all ears.

Since I don't have the plants right this minute i decided to hold off on a purchase and do some research and seek advice. Most 18" lights seem to be in the 15-18 watt range, which is fine as far as wattage per gallon, I just want to make sure the output is where it needs to be. Would it be a bad idea to reflect most/all of that light into the tank? That'd be a ton of light, so I'm thinking backing the light off of the tank 6 or 12 inches will keep the light levels reasonable.

Also a thought--since I have a pretty tiny space for growth would it be better to get a bulb that's less plant-oriented so to prevent encouraging the plants to grow so quickly they choke the tank?

 

[zig]

Well the watts per gallon rule goes out the window for small tanks, having said that, putting 15-18 watts over such a small tank is still quite an amount of light in proportion to the size of the tank and things will certainly grow, but i feel its more light than you auctually need you will also need a ballast to start these lights which will cost money, people would usually consider the wattage you are looking at if they wanted a totally planted setup.

A cheaper alternative would be to go to Walmart or somewhere like that and look at daylight plugin power compacts AKA the energy saving bulbs, with these you wont require any ballast starter etc. you can just plug them in and get instant light, something around 9-11 watts would be ample to grow Java moss, you could even use some sort of office angle poise to house the light, as far as i am aware Walmart sell these lights in the 6500k spectrum which is perfect for what you want and they are only about $5.

I think if you go for the higher wattage Hagen bulbs you could also run into difficulties with algae at some stage as well so the lower wattage may be a better option.

 

[Malkavian]

Thanks for the input Zig. The reason I had been considerng these lights is because I already had a pair of flourescent fixtures lying around from my younger days keeping iguanas, so I thought I might use one and not have to buy a new light setup.

I already light my room with those type of compact flourescent bulbs that you mention; if i can figure a way to get a fixture to where its pointing over the tank that's something I'll definitely consider

 

[xautomaticflowersx]

Note for future reference also... powerglo lights are high intensity and make the fish and the plants stand out really well, but it seems to make algae grow like nobody's business in my experience!