# Yet another lighting question...



## Humper (Aug 7, 2006)

I was going to do a few pendant lights over my tank but the cost/effectiveness were issues. Ive heard of people saying just get a shop light from a store and I was wondering if these would work. I need to get 1.2-1.5 watts per gallon and I have 180 gallons(6ft long). I cant find any shop lights that are 6ft long and can hold over 180 watts. I have found some 4fters but have no idea how much wattage they can handle. I cant find any 3fters either(i could use 2 of these happily). ANyone know where I can get some cheap shop lights. Heres the 4ft ones Clicky Clicky
They dont say they can handle enough lighting either







Help me out on this one please


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

You are looking for a watt per gallon ratio here. Do you have live plants in your tank? That would be the only reason for focusing on watts/gallon. If you simply housing p's, then no need to worry about how many watts you have, any light will do. 
If you are planning on doing live plants, then perhaps you might want to look into powercompacts. They have relatively small sizes, and much higher wattages.


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## Humper (Aug 7, 2006)

Coldfire said:


> You are looking for a watt per gallon ratio here. Do you have live plants in your tank? That would be the only reason for focusing on watts/gallon. If you simply housing p's, then no need to worry about how many watts you have, any light will do.
> If you are planning on doing live plants, then perhaps you might want to look into powercompacts. They have relatively small sizes, and much higher wattages.


Im going to be doing live plants I believe. Ive looked at all of the aquarium sites and these lighting fixtures are not cheap. Id rather not shuck out $300+ for a lighting system. So if you know of any sites or any substitutions I could make instead of using the special aquarium light fixtures I would greatly appreciate it. Can I put more wattage into those fixtures I posted than it says it has?


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## therizman1 (Jan 6, 2006)

You could always do ODNO.

Personally.. Id say either two 36" NOVA Extreme fixtures, or one 72" HO T5 Fixture... T5 is the way to go when it comes to live plants IMO.


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

As therizman1 suggested, those HO T5 fixtures would work very well on your tank.

To answer your question:
"Can I put more wattage into those fixtures I posted than it says it has?"
I would not, because all light fixtures are designed for the bulb wattage to match up with ballast that fires them. If you start mixing different bulb wattage and ballast that could be trouble. Besides, all of the tank lights are designed in a certain spectrum (e.g. Kelvin or "K" value) that works best with plant growth. For lighting purposes, any shop light works fine; however, for plant growth you proably would like to match intesity (e.g. Lux) and spectrum (Kelvin) to the requirments of the plants you are planning to keep.

You could always do a DYI system where you link up several RO or HO bulbs over your tank.


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## I-Eat-My-Master (Feb 19, 2006)

Here is the site that I got all my DIY lighting for.. I hope it works out, and you can use old aquarium hoods that you have laying around if you want as well....... Pretty easy to retrofit them and cheap and as I said umm easy lol.....

Here it is...Do It Yourself Lighting At MyFishTank.Net

Sorry I dont' want to take credit for it.....


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## BlackSunshine (Mar 28, 2006)

In your case you are going to need a couple fixtures if you're gonna go the DIY route with shop lights. You can go ODNO but you will need 2X the fixtures so that you can steal balasts from one and double them up in one fixture. It does dramatically decrese the blub life however. 
A decent T5 tek light may be your best option to please the lighting needs and asthetics of your application. 
Unless you made some sort of enclousure for them I think the shop lights would look like crap over your tank. 
and if your going to go thru the hassel of making a hanging enclousure for them then you might as well toss a 3x 96W retrofit PC system in there from www.AHsupply.com


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## Humper (Aug 7, 2006)

THanks for all the replies guys. I guess I need to just bite the bullet and get some good lighting. Are there any 36" lights with 110W that are around $50. I could do two of those and it would work ok right? Thanks again for the help


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## Humper (Aug 7, 2006)

Are these any good?


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## ZOSICK (May 25, 2005)

no clue, but you get what you pay for.


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## Humper (Aug 7, 2006)

What about this one clicky


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