LED light for 10 gal planted freshwater aquarium, Marineland Double Bright?

Hello everyone I'm new here and currently have a 10 gal freshwater planted aquarium.

I got the tank from petco a long time ago and it came with this cheesy hood and two little incandescent bulbs. The tank sits on a counter in the kitchen and never has any algae problems probably due to the poor lighting I'm guessing.

Anyways, I'm looking to get an LED light for my tank. The plants seem to do fine actually under the current light but there is hardly no growth. They just stay green but never get bigger and I use some liquid nutrafin fert that came free with this nutrafin co2 generator that I use with a nano glass diffuser by Up-Aqua. Also some API root tabs, only one at the moment as I have read they can turn your tank brown.

Basically I dislike the yellow hue from the bulbs and want a cleaner looking color and a more stylish top to go with the tank. Its a low tech tank that apparently doesn't need much light but I am looking for something with more light to help growth and look better than this POS. My water is very clear and I want to be able to enjoy the work I do to maintain it. Not looking for anything other than LED. Unless its a sweet deal.

Currently looking at Marineland's LED Double Bright or their LED Reef Capable Light. Leaning more towards the Double Bright as I found one for $50. Compared to $132 and it is only a 10gal tank that is supposed to be low tech and inexpensive [starting to cost more than expected] :) The thing I liked about the Reef one is it has more LEDs and a built in timer for the white and blue LEDs. Also they extend more to the end of the light so the 18in reef would light up my 20in tank perfectly. I'm worried the 18in Double Bright won't cover the whole tank, as I have read many reviews saying it is so focused it doesn't light up anything outside the focused beam. Also the Double Bright LED's are at 6500k and the Reef is at 10,000k light spectrum. I've read that around 6,500k is the best. Another reason to go with the Double Bright.

Ecoexotic.com has some nice LED lights that seem to be for saltwater. If it works for coral does that mean it works for freshwater planted as well?

I'll provide pics of the tank once my camera charges. Thanks!

ps dont make fun my gf wouldn't let me spend more than $100.

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Permalink Reply by Alex on August 29, 2012 at 12:51pm

anyone?

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Permalink Reply by Lee on September 3, 2012 at 9:32am

you do know that you could just replace the 2 incandescent bulbs with florescent bulbs right? you can get florescent bulbs that twist into the sockets your incandescent bulbs occupy. local petstore or even Walmart sell those bulbs. that's what I did when I had my 10g planted tank with the cheesy hood.

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Permalink Reply by Alex on September 3, 2012 at 2:13pm

i thought florescent bulbs had a different socket than incandescent bulbs, like floros have two prongs that stick out of the ends and are not grooved. ill research it but what kind of bulbs did you get? like wattage, cause those are extremely small lights and I don't see any floro fitting into that.

Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by Lee on September 3, 2012 at 7:21pm

they make florescent bulbs you can twist into incandescent sockets. they're called self ballasted bulbs. the tube bulbs you're referring to are just the standard florescent bulbs that have the ballasts in the fixture. http://www.walmart.com/ip/Lights-Of-America-10-Watt-Mini-Fluorescen... that's the bulb I used. if your bulb socket is a standard sized bulb socket, you can use the self ballasted fluorescent bulbs.

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Permalink Reply by Alex on September 6, 2012 at 3:59pm

thanks, wish the lady at petco who sold me the tank had told me this when i first got the tank. I ended up getting the zoo-med bulb from petco as there is no walmart in Seattle. My tank is so much brighter and the fish seem happier. I put in two new bulbs and the fish started swimming through the openings in the ornaments more. Also my plants have new growth already within the first few days.

Thanks a ton Lee.

As for the double bright, that is out of the question. I ended up purchasing the 18-24inMarineland Planted Tank LED light which is very similar to the reef capable but is in the 6500k spectrum and has 3 watt LEDs instead of the 1w and 60mw LEDs on the double bright. Also this one has a built in timer like the reef capable which is super handy. got it for 150 on petsolutions.com