Household compact flourescents for reef?

Are these good for fish or growing corals? Could you simply use high efficiency fluorescent instead of pricey setups? it cant be that easy can it?

I have seen for sale many pico tanks that seem to use the high efficiency household variety compact fluorescent (for example: Finnex 4 Gallon rimless glass pico tank is perfect for your desk | Reef Builders -The Reef Aquarium Blog ). I can't seem to find the K value or much info on the specs.

 

generally speaking, most household flourescents are 4800K-6500K and would only be useful for growing algae. Also, the flourescents used for growing corals on aquariums are power compacts, a completely different type of lighting. It would be difficult to get the power you need out of the household lamps in a space that would still fit above your tank.

 

In the example of the 4g pico...the reason that type of lighting works is because of the depth of the tank...it is a few inches at the most. But no...different spectrums would just grow algea

 

We purchased a Tom Aquarium Deco 3 gallon tank a few weeks back.

We chose it because it has a little better lighting for a small tank, 18W compact fluorescent perch-light fixture with 50/50 14,000°K actinic and 7,400°K daylight lamp. We have a few Zoo's and Xenia's in it already and they are doing fine.