# ballast capacity and bulb wattage



## nature (Jun 8, 2016)

I've bought all of my tanks second hand. There seems to be so much out there and some of it is really, really inexpensive. I got a 29 gallon tank with stand, hood and working light for $60 recently. It's an old-style which has this bulb in it

I put very, very bright light into my first planted tanks, because I have a gardening business and plants are one of my keen interests. However when I got ember tetras for the planted tank it took me ten days to realise that they were not eating because the lights were so bright they never ventured to the top of the tank. Feeding them became a bit of ritual of making sure there was enough ambient light that they could see the food, but not so much that they were scared/blinded.

So this 29 gallon is for them. I do not want bright light or I will have the same problem as I did before with the ember tetras. However I do want to grow some low light plants and <1 watt per gallon (which is what the bulb it has works out to) is, from what I have read, really not enough. *I was hoping to double it but don't know if you can put a higher wattage bulb into the same ballast?* Unfortunately there is no info whatsoever on the housing. It's all been worn off. I also would get a bulb with a higher colour temperature like this one -- don't know why the embedded URL wont work.

Thanks in advance for any help!


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## nature (Jun 8, 2016)

I think I'll probably just wait and see how the plants I have planted do with the bulb that is there. There's not a lot of choice in terms of T12 bulbs and I may just get a different hood once this one goes.


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