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My hubby went to "that BIG home improvement store with all the Orange" **hint hint** and got a 48 inch shop light & 2 light tubes for around 20 BUCKS!!
Me:
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are those kind of lights good for growing plants too??
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Gia, I think HomeDepot sells plant lights for exactly that purpose as well. I usually do the same thing than Jeana - cheap shop light, and one bulb is an aquarium light, the other one is a plant light (only if there are plants in my tank, of course ).
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Gia, there are standard NO (normal output) fluorescent tubes for just about any application. If you choose bulbs that are designed to grow plants... Standard NO bulbs will grow plants... If you have enough wattage. Standard NO fluorescent bulbs are the weakest of all the fluorescent bulbs available.
To grow live plants, the standard recommended wattage is 2-4 watts per gallon. So, if you put one four foot long two tube, 80 watt light fixture on a four foot long 55 gallon tank, you'd have about 1.5 watts per gallon. At 1.5 watts per gallon you could only grow low light requirement plants. But if you put two of those fixtures on the 55 gallon tank you'd have a total of 2.9 watts per gallon and would have a much wider selection of plants that you could grow.
To grow live plants, the standard recommended wattage is 2-4 watts per gallon. So, if you put one four foot long two tube, 80 watt light fixture on a four foot long 55 gallon tank, you'd have about 1.5 watts per gallon. At 1.5 watts per gallon you could only grow low light requirement plants. But if you put two of those fixtures on the 55 gallon tank you'd have a total of 2.9 watts per gallon and would have a much wider selection of plants that you could grow.
Me:
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Thank you! But unfortunatly that would mean I need to build my own hoods. They have two hoods on my 55 gallon, but only hold one bulb each. Maybe Ill do a bit of research on building hoods. Hubby is good with that stuff. His dad was an electrician so he knows how to wire stuff.
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Gia, you could retrofit your existing hood to use VHO (very high output) fluorescent bulbs. A 48" VHO fluorescent bulb has an output of 110 watts. Put two of these over your 55 gallon tank and you would have a total wattage of 4 watts per gallon, allowing you to grow any type of plants you want.
Ok so now that we are caught up, Im still kind of confused on how I would do this? Let me show you what my hood looks like and maybe you can tell me what I can do with it. Or maybe I just need to build a new one?
I REALLY want to be able to grow plants, but I was hoping I could find some bulb that would work in my current hoods, but is that not possible?
Can you explain to me what I would need to do in beginners terms? lol. Ive never really thought much about lighting before, but now that I want plants Im finding it very frustrating (and expensive) to keep buying plants they they just do not live. I even gave them some fertilizer but I guess the light is what they need.
Any suggestions on what I should do for my 55's would be very welcome.
Here is what my hoods look like:
See my hood says its 24 inches, but the bulb is not. Im not sure how long the bulb is, maybe 18 inches? It can only hold one bulb, but is there a way to modify it?
