Refugium Lighting

Well I have a ballast for 2, 36watt CFL lights so I went and bought 2 bulbs and the ballast must have went bad in the move or something. So hopefully I can take back the 2 bulbs. i've been reading on using CFL spotlights from home depot or lowes, but every article is from 05' or older so the lights in the articles are no longer sold. does anyone else you lights like these?

 

I personally use an old strip light, but I know people do use CFL for fuge lighting.

 

I use a normal clip lamp with a plant growth bulb I got at home depot for $7.

 

CFLs work fine. The stronger the wattage the better. Get something in the 3-6k range.
I use CFLs on my algae scrubber and they work well. One problem with them is they're relatively expensive because they really need to be replaced about every 3-4 months.
PCs six months or so and T5 about once a year. I'm going to be going T5 soon.

 

I use the same thing as jturnbull

 

1+ to cfl although i ave 14w led too

 

Yeah as far as the spotlight bulb goes get youself a reflector and use the regularCFL bulbs. They're much cheaper. Keep in mind salt creep and splashing though. Mine are behind plexiglass and it still gets salt on it.

 

yeah get a clamp on work lamp from walmart home depot anywhere reallly.

then get one of those "energy saver" screw in fluorescent bulbs... get something rated equivalent to a 100w incandescent should be 23w or 26w, i use the daylight spectrum (6500k) it works great in my fugggeee...

you can use a soft white spectrum too, but daylight you'll get better growth from your macro.

you can pop two of those suckers down there for about 20 bucks, 50w lighting that's about as good if not better than 50w of PC or any other fluoro.