# Halogen lighting



## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Hey Folks. I've been looking at different options for my 25g (or whatever) deep tank. As the sufface is only 24X12 there is not much room to mount lighting. The tank is almost 2' deep too which makes it a little difficult to get ample light to the bottom of the tank. I've been playing with different ideas. In a perfect world I would probably rig up 4- 24" VHO florescent bulbs but I would have to build the top as I haven't found a fixture that fits the specs. So it's a double 24" strip light plus something if I can. Like a couple of outriged single small bulbs. Leds have the wrong spectrum for plants although they would fit in the space behind the strip. As a curiosity I looked at Halogen to see about sepctrum as they aren't available for aquarium use as standard. Heat is issue but they are small and from what I read they are actually better suited in terms of spectum for what I am talking about than florescents. Thoughts before I rig something up? I'm thinking of a couple of clamp on crane armed fixtures in Halogen of course. I then can move them around easily. 

Rob


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

How high is your aquarium? 

I would not suggest using Halogen bulbs, they emit too much heat for our purposes.

Have you looked into T5 (NO or HO) lighting?


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Halogen has a CRI of 100, but, apparently they are seriously lacking in certain wavelengths needed by plants. It makes me wonder how they can have a CRI of 100 and not be good for plants.


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## Cowboy (Aug 19, 2010)

I am using a couple of CFL's and so far what i have read is that they are a good alternative, good wave lengths, not a lot of heat, easy to find, and very cheat to replace.


in my testing it penetrates right down to the bottom in my 33 and 20 gallon


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

Definitely, CFL bulbs are a good alternative to halogen bulbs.

If you have a good PAR meter, you can definitely test how effective they are versus halogen (or other types) of bulbs.


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## waj8 (Jun 30, 2010)

BillD said:


> Halogen has a CRI of 100, but, apparently they are seriously lacking in certain wavelengths needed by plants. It makes me wonder how they can have a CRI of 100 and not be good for plants.


Halogens have a continuous spectrum that very closely matches natural light sources, so colors are not distorted as they would under a poor CRI light source. Halogens have a pretty low color temperature of around 3000K so they do not have a lot of blue light in their spectrum. The color temp. matches the actual temperature of the filament. Now if you have a high CRI lamp that is also around 6500K then you have a lamp that is somewhat similar to sunlight and therefore also somewhat good for growing plants.


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## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Hmm. Not that I am an expert because clearly I am not but I was told that standard incandescent bulbs run at around 3000K. A Halogen actually burns much hotter and due to that they have a higher frequency light spectrum. One can actually see that as their visible light is a little blue (white) compared to a standard incandescent which has a light which is a little more yellow. With what I read they were sitting closer to 5000K. I was originally looking at doing a double CFL which would have brought the lux up dramatically and probably been sufficient on their own but upon looking at spectrum I noticed that the CFL's when compared to the HO or VHO's were missing a pile of stuff and upon further investigation it turned out that what I was looking at in their specs were absolutey fact. They really are not good for a planted tank. Big Als thinks that the 2-24" HO's are enough but I'm trying to get max out of the tank if I can. BTW I haven't seen a VHO bulb in a 24". 2 of those would probably rock it.


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## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Darkblade48 said:


> How high is your aquarium?
> 
> I would not suggest using Halogen bulbs, they emit too much heat for our purposes.
> 
> Have you looked into T5 (NO or HO) lighting?


High output (HO) or if I could find it Very High Output T5's are what I was looking at. I am not familiar with "NO" lighting. Nitrogen Oxide? The tank is almost 2' (24") high and as it is a discus setup it needs to be at 85 degrees. It has a 200 watt heater in it now. Our place is AC'd and never hotter than 77f so I am thinking that the heat might not be a bad thing afterall. The dual 24" HO fixture is 48 watts total. Maybe that is enough light already? One of the bulbs is a 650nm (pink tint, plant bulb)


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## Darkblade48 (Jan 28, 2008)

There are T5VHO bulbs, but they are very rare.

NO = normal output

2x24W T5HO bulbs should give you more than adequate lighting for your aquarium. You will definitely need to keep on top of fertilization and CO2 with that kind of lighting, especially if your lights are near the surface of the aquarium.


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## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Normal Output...LOL. Isn't it always the obvious that trips us up?

Sounds like my thoughts are in line then hence the augmentation thought. You need to know that true to mt nature I am trying to make it perfect and it is an imperfect scenario. Truly I should ditch the tank in favor of something with a little larger footprint. 30g (or whatever it is) is just too small for discus in the end anyways. For this tank more surface would have helped a ton like a 24" X 18" but then it is still too small. I guess then it is about as pimped as reasonably possible now. You need to know my visa is screaming 110 gallon at me. Can't fit it though. Can't afford it right now either.


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## waj8 (Jun 30, 2010)

Halogen is maximum 3400K. They do appear whiter to my eye though. I believe the produce a significant amount of UV as well. I would forget the halogens just on the electrical cost factor alone. They probably would not grow plants that great either. Heat would be a huge problem too.

Although T5 HOs are initially expensive, they are cheaper in the long run because they are very efficient.

If you want a big planted tank and don't have a lot of money, look for a used 80,100 or 110. Make sure the tank is 4' long. That way the lamps and fixture won't be too expensive. The fixture will cost though there is no way around it. It's either pay now or pay later.


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## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

Actually the cost of a 2 bulb HO strip light is only around $150 with the bulbs included. That is not the issue. I was thinking I need 4 bulbs on that tank. The top is only 24" X12". I don't think 4 would fit so I was trying to find another way around it. I think you are right about the UV as I remember a discussion one time of someone being able to get a sunburn from a Halogen light but the memory is very vague so I wouldn't trust that. Who knows who the source was too. The tank is always the cheap part and that is not really an issue either. Buy the time you outfit it with gear a 100+ gallon rig even if you got the glass for free is going to be into a grand or so. Also we'd have to move. There is just no room here for that.


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## bae (May 11, 2007)

Your tank is too small for discus, as well as having such bad proportions for a planted tank.

One problem with halogen bulbs is that they run so hot that a drop of water will shatter them.

For a very deep tank, people sometimes use metal halide or similar pendants. These also run very hot and are expensive both to buy and to run.

You might consider having a lot of wood in the tank and plant only the upper parts with plants that you can attach to the wood like java fern, anubias and mosses. In this case a normal 2-tube 24" fixture, which you can buy at Rona or Home Depot would work well. Or you could run the tank as a paludarium with only the bottom half or 2/3 full of water, with wood sticking out planted with moisture-loving terrestrial plants, either specialist plants like bromeliads and orchids, or just wrapping the wood in pothos/philodendron with its roots in the water. You could keep a group of small schooling fish in it, like small tetras or some of the new tiny rasboras, a group of corydoras, etc, or you could use it for small frogs with a lower water level (look into the requirements of these animals first!).


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## Roberacer1 (Aug 21, 2010)

It is absolutely too small for discus but by the miracle of modern tech she'll fly anyways. I just know it. Truthfully we plan to go to a bigger rig in the next year. We have 2 tanks and we have mostly been buying oversized parts for this one in prep for that. Essentially we will have bought the bigger rig in pieces. Which overall will end up costing more but on the upside we can buy the exact parts we want and not have to buy whatever kit gets offered so that we get the pricing point we need. The filter on this tank is an Eheim 2217 for instance which is for a much larger tank and part of the plan. We already have an Eheim 2213 on the other tank which will do fine on this one when we switch it over to being things like plants and neons. The plan is to loose the tank that that is on. In the end it still needs reasonable lighting and stuff so we are buying what it needs. The dual 24" HO's should take care of anything requiring moderate lighting. The tank is only 22" deep and right now 2-3" of that is substrate.


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