mini bow
 

have any of you guys seen the mini bows they sell at wall mart
they have every thing but a heater included for 60 dollars
the one thing i am wondering is about the lighting
it has a 25 watt incundesent
would this work? or is incundesent not good enough

i've heard of a few nanos being done in setups like that, assuming this is one of those little plastic ones. i think you might be able to keep mushrooms with incandescent, not much more, but maybe not even that. i'd make sure the tank holds water before putting it into place, i've heard bad things about walmart tanks.

Hi,

I wouldn't use the lighting fixture as is. I would either buy a retrofit kit and put in 32W PC or I would see if I could use 20W/15W outdoor daylight fluorescent bulbs that can screw in to a regular lamp socket (you can get those at your local HD or Revy). The Minibow is pretty good and its made by a reputable company...Marineland.

- Victor.

I'm with Victor, the only thing you will grow under incadescent light is algae... and not good algae.

Re: mini bow
 

The All-Glass acrylic (sort of ironic they make acrylic tanks with a company name like All-Glass) 2.5 gal mini bow we setup a couple of weeks ago had a 15 watt incandescent. The bulb thread is the same as any household incandescent bulb, and the bulb gave off the most horrible yellow light. I retrofitted to a 15 watt Envirolite. It's gives full daylight white light and the bulb is a curly sort of thing. Bought at one of my least favourite lfs for livestock, but they sometimes have surprising products at reasonable prices.

you can put a self ballast compact flourescent bulb in the incandescent socket. I think coralife puts out a 50/50 bulb. I have attached the link.

http://www.esuweb.com/new_site/ccc_mini