# New aquarium has dim lighting



## gb2002 (Mar 8, 2011)

Hi I am new to aquariums and do not know much about the lighting. I recently bought a 10 gallon aquarium for my son and an aqueon 20 gallon high aquarium kit for myself. The ten gallon aqarium has two incandescent bulbs and is well lit, but the 20 gallon tank seems very dim. It has one flourescent bulb that says it is a t8 8,000k natural daylight bulb and also when the fish are toward the top of the tank where the opening is it is very dark there. I don't know if a different bulb would be brighter or if its the light fixture. I also looked at an aqueon versa glass top, i was hoping that would fix it being dark toward the front of the tank. I looked at one bulb that said it was 10,000k high efficiency bulb and was wondering it that would be better, or if you have to have a special fixture to use a bulb that says high efficiency. Thank you for any help anyone could give me, because i am really lost when it comes to the lighting.


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

gb2002 said:


> Hi I am new to aquariums and do not know much about the lighting. I recently bought a 10 gallon aquarium for my son and an aqueon 20 gallon high aquarium kit for myself. The ten gallon aqarium has two incandescent bulbs and is well lit, but the 20 gallon tank seems very dim. It has one flourescent bulb that says it is a t8 8,000k natural daylight bulb and also when the fish are toward the top of the tank where the opening is it is very dark there. I don't know if a different bulb would be brighter or if its the light fixture. I also looked at an aqueon versa glass top, i was hoping that would fix it being dark toward the front of the tank. I looked at one bulb that said it was 10,000k high efficiency bulb and was wondering it that would be better, or if you have to have a special fixture to use a bulb that says high efficiency. Thank you for any help anyone could give me, because i am really lost when it comes to the lighting.


for freshwater aquariums 5500k-6500k look the best to me.

On the 10g you can just replace the incandescent bulbs with the screw in incandescent replacement bulbs. Look for 15w 6500k ge bulbs at your local wall mart.

You can replace the existing tube on the 20g with same wattage but different K value tubes. to get more actuall watts you will need to replace the fixture.

What I did from my 20g (long) was put a piece of 1/4" square grid (egg crate) lighting diffusers on the top. Then put three round spot reflectors on that with screw in spiral bulbs (6550k). Looked pretty nice. and plant thrived. But that may not be a "pretty" as you want but it would give you some idea of what more lighting would look like.


my .02


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## Bklyn38 (Mar 8, 2011)

You might like an LED light. Expensive to buy but last for 10 years and cost next to nothing to run.


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## majerah1 (Oct 29, 2010)

Im not sure the LEDs will light the 20 high well enough.I have read that they give off about the same ammount of light as a standard strip light.Other than saving power,I dont think it would be worth the initial price.


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## gb2002 (Mar 8, 2011)

I made a mistake in my first post, i said i saw a bulb that said high efficiency, i meant to say it said high intensity. So i wanted to know if you could use a high intensity bulb in a normal fixture, and if that would really make more light if you could. Also what are the numbers for on the bulbs? Like 8000k or 10,000k? i have no idea what they mean. Thank you for your replies


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## mec102778 (Feb 17, 2011)

Here's come good reading on Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs.

SHO CFL: Compact fluorescent lamps cling to relevance with Super High Output (SHO) bulbs


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## beaslbob (May 29, 2009)

gb2002 said:


> I made a mistake in my first post, i said i saw a bulb that said high efficiency, i meant to say it said high intensity. So i wanted to know if you could use a high intensity bulb in a normal fixture, and if that would really make more light if you could. * Also what are the numbers for on the bulbs? Like 8000k or 10,000k? *i have no idea what they mean. Thank you for your replies


just to get really really nerdy the K is for the degrees kelvin a perfect black body radiator would be heated up to the give out the same light. So it is the color spectrum of the light. Higher kelvins more blue light.

In aquariums higher K light is close to what you would see at depth. At 30' or so the light has been filtered down to a blue color.


my .02


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## phys (Feb 4, 2011)

you cant put a high inensity light ( like a VHO) into a regular (HO or less) light if they are the standard T8 bulbs. You'll have to change the ballast. 

LEDs do work well with deeper tanks, you just need to get more LEDs as you would with any bulb. You cant get a normal LED and expect it to work. You'd have to go with at least the 1 watt LEDs to do anything helpful. They are expensive but if you know how or can learn how to solder, you can build one for a quite a bit cheaper than purchasing one. If you want to see some kits or prices go to Aquarium Lighting | LED Aquarium Lighting. I just bought some from there and am waiting for them for my reef tank. They have super simple kits that are a great price in comparison to many other light sources.

FYI, a single 3 watt LED has close to the same output (driven at the right current and voltage) as a screw in 15 watt 6500k CFL. 

The different kelvin values just tell you where the peak intensity of the light source and integrated over half the height of the peak is emitted. It doesnt mean that the light is only in the blue or only in the red. It just outputs more intensely in the blue, yellow, red, etc wavelengths. For a planted tank, 6500K is sufficiant.


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## Niki7 (Aug 16, 2010)

I have the same tank that you have (20H) and I am assuming you are using the hood that came with it? That hood is pretty much useless. The bulb doesn't even go to the ends of the fixture housing so there are lots of dark spots, besides being not even 1 watt per gallon. I just bought a new T5HO along with the versatop and my info is on the Planted Tank topic page if you're interested. Are you going planted?


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