Lighting for 6 gallon

[MelonMan]

I am looking to have live plants in my 6 gallon and wondering where do I buy fish tank lights and do I have to buy ones especially made for fish tanks and how much do they cost. I am just a bit confused because I have never really seen lights around before....

[cocoa_pleco]

im not sure in australia, but almost all pet stores will have some. for a 6g you probably will find incandescent light fixtures as the most common, you might be able to get a small fluorescent fixture

[Incredulous_Ed]

How long is the tank? You can get light fixtures anywhere from 8 inhes to alot more than that.

[MelonMan]

its 40cm so about 16 inches roughly can i use anything other than a proper fish tank light? like something from bunnings which is your equivalent of home depot?

[Mvjnz]

Doesn't matter where you get the light as long as it has the right spectrum for plants. I can't remember what that is right now, but I'm sure someone else will.

[Sasquatch]

We bought the lights for our 5g at the hardware store. Just make sure that they're the right spectrum, 6700K or more. Normal lights are too far into the red/yellow end, plants need more blue.

The tricky part is finding a fixture that'll fit on the tank. Once that's done, the bulbs are too hard to find.

[MelonMan]

so where did you buy the fixture from sasquatch?

[Tigerbarb]

You could get the smallest possible strip-light, then build a small fixture to hold the light up above your tank.
Another suggestion of mine would be to get two of these [Only Registered Users Can See Links.]

[Sasquatch]

We bought them at some local pet stores.

One is fixture for a reptile terrarium, the other a replacement hood for a 5g tank. Both have incandescent screw-in fixtures, but we put compact fluorescent lights in them, the twisted types that fit in screw in fixtures.

They actually work pretty good and we can cram a lot of light into them. For the 10g we could have as much as 52w or light (ATM it's 41). The fixture for the 5g is smaller, so we can't fit the larger CF lights, but ATM we have two 13w lights. In both the plants are doing quite well, just a few algae problems in the 10g because we can't get the nutrient balance right ... but it's getting better.

[RainMan]

I was wondering if you could use the twist on flourescent lights for the incadescent fixtures. I was debating if I should replace the hood and lights on my 10 gal. But, now I'm gonna have to go down to the hardware store and see what they have. That should save some money.

[Incredulous_Ed]

For that size tank, you could go to a hardware store and buy one of those clamp on work light. Then put a CF bulb in it and use that as your light.