In article ,
Thrifty wrote:
I have seen these replacement bulbs for regular lampshades at the
supermarket, those curly ones. 2 for 10 dollars, daylight it said on the
box. If I remember correctly there were small ones (17 watts= to a 60 watt
) and large ones (27 watts = to a 100 watt) They just plug into any old
lite socket. Anyone considered useing these. Has anyone had success.

Compared to Y5, T8 or even T12 fluorescent tubes, they suck.

Compard to incandescent bulbs, they're wonderful.

The problem is they're a point source of liht, not a strip. All
that light comes from essentially a sphere, and radiates outward
ina radial pattern. Not enough goes straight down into the tank
like you want it too.

I made some hoos from white plastic rain gutter. The 17W ones were
ok but the 23W nes got so hot they turned the plastic brown and
brittle in under a year.

You want some good reflective material behid them. The heat and water
resistant mylar that hydroponics.com franchises sell is good for this.

Keep in mind a 24" 2-W tibe is going to illuminate everywhere under the 24"
bulb, but a single 23W screw in fluporescent is going to illluminate only
under the small bulbn itself. You'd need three or four of them to illuminate
a 2" length. In this sense they aren't very efficient.

http://images.aquaria.net/hw/lights/screwins/

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