Nano Lighting

I'm thinking of making a refugium of sorts that is a separate system from the display tank. I have an extra 10 gallon tank lying around and my plan is to put in it a few pounds of live rock, and stock it with macroalgae. It would be used to culture pods and macros for my gobies and tangs to eat. It would also be a frag tank for softies. My question is how to light it. I have heard of people using full spectrum desk lamps to light tanks, which intrigued me. Would using something like a 42 watt full spectrum lamp work to light a 10 gallon tank, or do you need a fixture? Any other suggestions?

 

i would use pc, or t5 since its gonna be a frag tank

thats just my suggestion i have no knowledge of what full spectrum desklights actually put out. and there pretty expensive you could just get a regular pc for the same price

 

If I were to forgo the frags and just go macros what would the light needs be? Anyone know a place to get a cheap PC or t5 fixture?

 

ebay
im assuming 10gall is 13 inches AQUARIUM LIGHT 13" REFUGIUM POWER COMPACT 24 WATT #U10 - eBay (item 360100864623 end time Nov-22-08 11:29:07 PST)
plants need lights of 2-4 wpg

 

Do you have experience with this fixture? I've heard a lot of stories of people getting lights off of ebay and having them blow out or burst into flames.

 

Also, you mean 2-4 WPG of full spectrum right?

 

plants care more about the amount of light more then the spectrum. but ideally it would be 10k or below

i bought oddysea stuff before its definitely not high quality but never had it catch on fire.

 

So just to clarify, if I wanted to do just macros, I wouldn't necessarily need a PC or t5 fixture?

 

probably not but you need something that will put out enough watts

 

So something like a lamp that puts out 40 or 50 watts would work? This would be far cheaper and this is going to be a relatively low budget tank.