DIY spiral CFL light

[Scrup]

Dont knock it till ya try it ;)

Just bought 2 bathroom lamp fixtures with 4 sockets each, removed the sockets and the wiring, built a wood box, screwed the sockets in, added two lamp cords, and screwed in the bulbs. Took me about 4 hours to make this. Cost about $50 including bulbs. Pretty sure I am gonna make one of these for all my tanks, I love them.

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I'll take some pics of the inside later today.

[SwordTaleLair]

I did some checking on the spiral cfl's and found they do have 6500K temp bulbs. Our LWM had them for sale $0.97 each the other day.

Pretty cool Scrup!! I was thinking about making a full enclosure hood doing the same thing and putting the light kits horizontally on the front and back [inside].

STL.

[fishluvr]

sorry to ask a stupid question, but are you saying that you made a light setup using just the compact flourecents that you can buy in the store, the ones you would use to light any of your rooms in your house? and if so, do they produce enough to grow some medium + light required plants? i would like to get plants that don't need low light, but don't want to pay 300+ for a light kit for a 75 gallon tank.

[Scrup]

Yes just normal CFL bulbs. I am positive it can handle medium light plants, but without a PAR meter I can't tell you exactly what would work.

I can tell you that it is 960w total in this setup(though that doesn't mean crap anymore and some of it is lost to restrike - light hitting the bulb). It is still incredibly bright. I've done a bit of reading and have come to the conclusion it is a perfectly valid option.

Compared to the 3x t8 bulbs this is replacing, it is not even a comparison.

[Sarkazmo]

I use the GE 6500K Daylight bulbs in $7 clamp lamp reflectors. They work great. BTW, unless it's labeled as Daylight or a specific Kelvin rating it's likely to be much lower in the Kelvin scale, Warm bulbs are pretty low, around 3500-4000k, insufficient for plant growth.

Sark

[Scrup]

I use the 6500k daylight bulbs. Good stuff. Who needs t5 :P