hd clip on light

hey i was wondering if people use those homedepot clip on lights for thier refugium can they be use on a 10 gallon to grow corals? nothing high light just xenia, gsp, zoa's, shrooms, maybe acans

 

anyone?

 

if you put a 23W CFL and keep em high up im pretty sure it'll work(i have this in my fuge but only have grape calupera in there)

 

I don't think you will like the color of the corals. Corals show color best under higher kelvins temps. CFL only go up to about 6500K. The growth rate will be awesome though.

 

If you are going to use just a clamp on flood light you wont recieve very good results. Their par rating is decievingly low. The colors would also be very drab. There are plenty of diy lighting that could work for fragging though. LEDs would be a very fun and effective build.

 

im trying to keep the costs low on this so is there i cheap light i can buy that would work?

 

why not just put the corals in your main tank?

 

Buying CREE leds and assembling them allows you to choose your exact color spectrum, have incredible colors pop, and is actually alot cheaper than power compact or t5. You could find a retrofit kit, but with reflectors and bulbs it would be expensive as well. I would recommend looking into led lighting. They will last you forever as well.

 

Could this be had in addition to a regular fixture, so I would get good color & lots of growth?

 

6500K gives great growth bad color, 20000K give great color bad growth, 14000K best of both worlds.
If you have a T5HO with 6 bulbs then get 1 6500K, 1 pink/purple bulb and 4 ATI blue plus. Will put a serious kick in everything.