What's better, a >10 month old 65 watt VHO or a new 40 watt reg plant bulb?

I need to buy new bulbs for my planted 100 gallon tank. I have to replace 2 double 95 watt power compacts that are probably 1.5 years old or more and that's $75.00 X 2, and 6 65 watt VHO bulbs for $50.00 each and totalling $250.00. I'm broke now and am thinking of putting my 4 foot 4 bulb 40 watt shop light with new plant bulbs in place of the old high output VHO's and power compacts. Are the old VHO lights still better since they are using more power, or should I just slap my shop light on with cheap new 40 watt plant bulbs until I can afford to buy the VHO bulbs? The issue is that old bulbs are supposed to grow algae. I'd like some knowledgeable opinions as this is a pretty technical plant grower's issue.

What are the light requirements for the plants in that tank, do they need low or high light. I know that there are poeple that use the day light 4 foot bulb that you can purchase at the hardware store. I'm not a plant expert, but if the plant are needing low to medium light your shop bulbs should be ok. Here is a link to a plant site that I goto when I'm not sure of something http://www.plantgeek.net/article_viewer.php?id=3 this link will take you to an article that may answer your question. I hope this helps a bit.

The plants are all low light requiring species, but it's a 100 gallon tank and it's pretty deep. I have the old VHO's and power compacts and they're pretty bright. I'm just trying everything possible to get rid of this brush algae. I had an 6.0 acidic water problem that I balanced to 7.0, I put phosphate absorbing material in the filter, and new algae doesnt seem to be growing. I had to remove most of the leaves that were covered with the stuff and now I'm going to remove all my wood and scrub that clean too. Most of that nice Java moss will be removed in the process. Don't old lights grow algae?

Rank2 Member Age : 33 Joined : 20 Jan 2008 Posts : 63

How long do you have your lights on for during the day? If you decrease the amount of light that would help with the algae. If I remember right the lights should only be on for 8 to12 hours a day.

I've heard that to much light would helps algae grow or direct sun light, but I have never heard or read about old lights causing algae to grow more. I'll have to look that one up. Is this the tank with the Gars in it?

Yes this is the tank with the gars, and I have the lights on no more than 12 hours a day. I was told by a number of aquarium stores that as the lights get old the spectrum and light quality gets worse, and that this change in (spectrum) would cause algae to grow. I did have a situation where I wasn't changing the water enough, there was too much phosphates in the water, and the pH was low. I've dealt with those issues, I cleaned the gravel really well, have been doing water changes more, have been scrubbing the phosphates. I removed most of this really difficult to remove brush algae by removing 90% of the leaves, and tomorrow I'm going to take out the wood and scrape it clean. There was never a problem with ammonia or nitrites, just pH. I'm just trying to maintain an environment where it doesn't want to grow, where the plants use up the nutrients faster than the algae. I know where it came from. I brought it in on a water Lilly from a pond. If no-one has heard anything really bad about old lights I'm not going to worry too much for now. I'll wait till I get new lights before trying to grow Val and grass like plants that need more light. Oh yea, the algae is a special kind of really hard to eradicate type and it seems to like low pH environments. I think I've got it so it's not spreading any more. Thanks for the input guys!

I did some checking and found this--- Brown algae: Forms in soft brown clumpy patches. In the freshwater aquarium, these are usually diatoms. Usually indicates a lack of light or an excess of silicates. Increased light levels will usually make it disappear. Easily removed by wiping the glass or syphon vacuuming the affected area.

This was the only algae I could find that was caused by a lack of light, but I couldn't find anything on the light spectrum and algae. Also I have an article on nuisance algae you may be interested in. http://www.freewebs.com/celticwraith/nuisancealgae.htm

Thanks for doing some research. If you go to www.plantgeek.com and look under red algae, the black variant of red brush algae, and look at the picture where it looks kind of like a purple flower, it's that. Click on the upper left really dark pic to blow it up and the wood in my tank, that doesn't have Java moss on it, it looks like that. It's like long velvet and is very hard to physically remove.(*) This stuff looked kind of cool at first as it covers bare wood like soft fur, and before it completely covers the leaves it builds up on the leaf edges and looks like a furry fringe. You really have to remove the whole leaf to get rid of it. They say it's maybe the hardest to get rid of algae there is. I don't see any new stuff growing back, and I've cleaned out most of the stuff in my tank, so hopefully I can control it. If it comes back even with 7.0 pH, frequent water changes, and phosphate management I might try copper. I'm going to try to get a snail population going too, like the ram horn type. They're pretty voracious eaters, and once I get things looking nice I'll take some pics so you all can see my gars.

You might want to try some T5's or some other VHO lights if you are planning to keep more delicate plants. Your Gars might be a bit sensitive, though.
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I am using 4 double 65 watt VHO bulbs and 2 double 95 watt power compacts. They're just a bit old. The PC's I found in the garbage as a whole set up, the VHO's are about a year old.

Wow! I finally did a complete clean of my 100 gallon. I had removed most of the old algae covered leaves a week or so ago, but today I removed all the wood, the rocks, the powerheads, the other filter equipment, and the plants and did a combination of soaking and scrubbing with bleach. I even pushed all the gravel to the middle and pulled up both end undergravel filter plates, cleaned underneath and repositioned. I was able to really get at all the gunk in the gravel out of the tank and I cleaned the 2 cannister filters. Now it's all set up again and I hope the plants grow in again without this damned brush algae which is really hard to get off even flat surfaces. I removed a layer of glass on the top to maximise the light going into the tank and it looks pretty clean now, and even the fish seem to be happier. This took about 4 hours of really hard work and I think, though the lights are a bit old, there's still plenty of light to grow the plants I have.