Comment by Gary E on March 9, 2013 at 2:35pm

Josh,

 

A standard 48” t-8 fluorescent bulb is 32 watts.  When using t-12 or t-8 lighting, the old standby of watts per gallon is applicable.  So with a single t-8 tube on a 55 gallon, you will have less than 1 watt per gallon.  Because of the configuration of the full hood on top of the aquarium, you do not have many options to add additional lighting.  As you can tell, the full hood is designed to hold a single strip light that sits in the middle channel on top of the glass.

 

If you ditch the full hood and replace it with glass covers, than you can create any combination of lights you want.  Even by buying an inexpensive dual bulb shoplight from Home Depot or Lowes and sitting it on top of the aquarium, along with the strip light you have now, will give you 96 watts of light (3x32 watts).  A dual bulb shoplight should cost about $10.00 - $15.00.  The bulbs (48” 5000k - 6500k), also from Home Depot are about $3.00 each.

 

Regarding the 10-gallon light strip you showed on your smaller tank (the strip with two 25 watt incandescent clear bulbs), you could greatly improve that fixture by replacing the two clear incandescent bulbs with two spiral compact fluorescent bulbs (available in either 13 or 23 watt intensity).  These are available at Home Depot or Lowes as well, just be sure to get the ‘DAYLIGHT’ bulbs which are between 5000k – 6500k.  These spiral cfl bulbs have a screw in base just like the incandescent bulbs you have now but will provide you a more beneficial light spectrum for your plants.  The incandescent bulbs are bright but worthless.  The spiral cfl bulbs are really cheap, a couple of bucks each.

 

If you are handy (or know someone who is), you can remove the fluorescent fixture guts from your strip light and replace it with three sets of double screw in sockets, giving you a total of six cfl 23 watt bulbs.  This would provide you great, cheap lighting for your 55 gallon tank.  Just be careful if you decide to attempt the conversion, dicking around with electricity can be dangerous.

 

All the parts you will need are available at Home Depot or Lowes.  Search around You Tube for DIY Rain Gutter Lighting.  These are tutorials of how to build this type of cfl lighting, only you will not the pvc rain gutter as a housing since you already have the strip light shell.

 

Also, if you can find two used 24” incandescent light strips on craigslist, you can mount cfls bulbs in them and replace your single 48” fluorescent light strip (32 watts) with two 24” incandescent strip lights (a 24” incandescent fixture holds two bulbs [total 46 watts per fixture]).

 

I hope this helps, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

 

Regards,

-Gary

My email address: ge2655@bellsouth .net

My You Tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ge2655h20?feature=mhee

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