Light heating the water?

[lilhurleybunny]

I have watched my tank go from 73 to 84 just about everyday. At night when I turn my lights off they temperature gets down to about 73 where its a nice healthy temperature for my fish. But during the day it can get up to 84 with the lights on!

Is there a way to fix this wthout having to reach myhand in a turn my heater down all the time?

Is it bad that my lights do this? Are there any that dont?

Thanks!!!!

 

[HeatherSweetness]

Flourescent lighting isn't as bad at heating the water. I have a hood with two 15 watt bulbs in it and it heats it up fast. I just don't leave the lights on so long. The flourescent ones only make the water go up a degree or two. What kind do you have on your tank?

 

[Lateral Line]

Incandescent bulbs, (round with a filament in them which glows), are very inefficient. They get very hot, and give out little light for the power they use compared to fluorescent tubes which run cool.

LHB:

I know you are active in the plant forum, so just a little heads up, when we talk about 2Watts per gallon or so, we are talking fluorescent Watts, not incandescent. To get the same light intensity form incandescents, you'd need to use about 4 times that value.

 

[lilhurleybunny]

I have 25 watt G&E bulbs. I'm not sure if they are flourescent or not because i bought them a few weeks ago at my local hardware store.

I have a feeling they are incandesent bulbs, Lateral. I dont have my live plants anymore because they all died due to my airstone problem (I figure im gonna get some live ones later on when i have more eexperience ), so i'm going to figure out how to use my timer so that the lights are only on certain times of the day. I'll keep this up until I make my little trip to PetsMart or somewhere and get some good bulbs .

 

[Moe]

I had the same problem with one of my 10G tanks. It came with incandescent bulbs. They kind of look like an elongated light bulb. The only way to switch to fluorescent lights is to replace the entire light fixture which is pretty expensive. You can't just switch the bulbs. If you are going to keep the incandescent lights then I'd only leave the lights on when you are viewing the fish.

 

[Adrinal]

arnt there some sort of flor bulbs that could screw right in there?

I only run one bulb on my 10g... looks stupid.. but I worry about the heat as well.

 

[lilhurleybunny]

The only way to switch to fluorescent lights is to replace the entire light fixture which is pretty expensive. You can't just switch the bulbs.

Yeah I looked into that. Hopefully tommarow i am stopping by petsmart and ill pick up all that since i now have money and am not on the mom and dad budget .

I dont mind replacing everything...the flourescent bulbs are probably a bit nicer anyway .

 

[Lateral Line]

You can buy compact fluorescents which have the starter built in and can be screwed directly into an ordinary light socket. They tend to be slightly larger then ordinary bulbs though. I have many of them in the house, in fact I think I have only 4 incandescents left, as they burn out they get a compact fluorescent replacement, saves a lot of power.

 

[Adrinal]

just saw them at the HW store. Look nice. little Compact Flor... unfortuantly no 50 50 guess you need a real light for that.

 

[lilhurleybunny]

Well thanks for the tips but sunday I went to petsmart and got a whole new lid and everything with the flouescent blub included. It looks pretty snazzie if I do say so myself. I'm so happy because for the past couple of days the temperature has been staying at 76 degrees, YAAAY!!! .

Anyway thanks for all of your help. Now I need to find a new home for my old lid o.o..hopefully someone needs one .

THANKS GUYS!!!