For flourescent light for plants one is supposed to have about 2 to 4 watts per gallon as an average rule but, when using incadescents made for plant growth how many watts per gallon would be needed to grow most average plants?

I see no one answered your question; although I don't know myself I DO know that incandescent lights can produce a lot of heat so too many watts might not be a good thing.

I understand that the spectrum of the light is very important to consider but I'm not sure which part of the spectrum of light most plants use...based off looking at the package my light came in I think it's blue, higher energy light.

I havent answered cause I dont use those kinds of lights and really dont know. Maybe Jetman can help there

But I agree with Melle about the heat.

I've actually done a bit of research on lighting, so I might be able to help you out. Apparently, incadescents are very inefficient (energy is wasted) and produce a lot of heat. Therefore, even if you are using 1 watt per gallon, much of the energy is wasted and not all the watts are being used for light.

If your aquarium is small, you might be able to get away with it. Otherwise, the light will be too hot (dangerous).

I have also heard that incadescents give off "low temperature light" which refers to the colours it produces. Lo temp. light is red/orange/yellow, and high temp. is blue (like fluorescents).

Every site suggests to avoid incad.s, but I use one on my 2 gallon. THey aren't too good for much bigger than that.


Hope I helped

I use in my 10 gallon tank a total of 40 watts of incandescents. One 15 watt blue plant grow bulb and one red 25 watt plant growth bulb (they dont seem to carry 25 watt blue bulbs around my area only 15 watt ones currently).

I use incadescent in my labrynth fishes (IE bettas,gouramis,paradise fish,ctenopomas,etc) tanks because it heat the air under the hood to a very nice tropical temp and it eliminates problems with baby labrynth fishes due to the fact that when the labrynth organ is develop within the baby fish if they breath in cooler air it could be very harmful or even fatal as the cooler air can make them very sick so I use incadescents to give the air alot of heat and humidity to create a nice tropical atmosphere.My anacharis is growing very well with the incandescents and so far the new micro sword I bought recently is doing well also so far.But upon reading at other websites how incadescents were less efficient I wasnt exactly sure what lighting level (ie low medium or high lighting)of plants I could grow successfully using incadescents.Thanks for the replys and thanks for the help.