"Victor M. Martinez" wrote:

These bulbs have their own ballast built in and I the wattage they
produce is alot higher than what they consume. For example, my 7 watt
bulb emits a candle power of 30-40watts (aprox).

Note that when talking wattage in the aquarium world, we're talking
fluorescent wattage. So your tank has 0.7 watts/gallon of light on it.

--
Victor M. Martinez | The University of Texas at Austin
| Department of Chemical Engineering
http://www.che.utexas.edu/~martiv | Austin, TX 78712
If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

Victor,

I have to disagree. 7 watts is the amount that the bulb consumes in energy,
what
it is set to dish out is equivalent to a 40 watt bulb. This bulb is as
bright as a 40 watt
incandescent bulb with the same spectrum as a fluorescent light. One of
these bulbs
gives me more light than 2 of those cheap lights they send with the tank.
Since I have
changed, my plants have grown 3 inches in less than 2 weeks.

Wattage (WATTS) is an energy consumpsion and not the amount of light it
emits.

Marc