Refugium Lighting Done Cheap?

I bought a metal clip on light from Home Depot for under 10 bucks and a screw in grow light for it. My question is will this work for growing chaeto as I will get some in the next couple days. I also found out I do not need to use a heater as throws off heat and keeps my water around 79 degrees by itself. Will this work or should I get another setup, they also have screw in flourescent grow bulbs that don't throw off heat.

 

I always learned by trial and error, luckily I haven't had to many errors, lol. Let us know either way, good or bad.

 

I haven't tried this bulb, but here's a review of it.......

Melevsreef.com - Refugium Bulb

 

In the link that Pisces23 posted, it tells you exactly what bulb he had best results with, i whent to homedepot yesturday and all their floodlights were 2700k, so make sure the k of the bulb you are using is that one recomended by Melev. Also remember that the floodlight already has a reflector, so you might not need the metal reflector. The floodlight that the link sugested is a flourescent bulb inside the glass, its pretty kool. Just my $.02

 

I use a 26 watts phillips CFL light bulb at 6500K and my macro is doing great. So yes it can be done cheap. $10 for the clip on light and $7 for the bulb seeing your macro grow like crazy, priceless!

Marc.

 

Chaeto should be fine. You don't need a high K light for it. That grow light is just a little hot and inefficient. Menard's has cheap florescent work lights on sale for under $20 right now that will run cooler and give off more light at a higher K if you want/need to upgrade.

 

I plan on getting the flouresent screw in grow bulb at home depot because of the heat my bulb throws off hopefully they have the higher kelvin ones. Will get my chaeto hopefully tommorow had to order from ebay as no lfs's around here have any. My house is pretty much kept at about 76 to 78 so at the moment I don't need extra heat in aquarium maybe in the summer when im running ac. Thanks for the info thought the cheap setup would work fine but it's always good to get the oppinions of those who have tried it.

 

What you could do is use a full spectrum(full daylight) scew in CP light. Thats 6500k light.