# Hagen Life Glo Vs Life Glo 2 ?



## Jafooli (Feb 9, 2013)

*Bump* 

This is my fourth question on here, in the lighting section, yet I can't manage to have any assistance :frown:. Is there anywhere else on this forum I should be posting where people have more experience with the Hagen Glo Bulbs as I know these lights aren't really rated highly so I can understand why people may not be able to answer my question. And I guess a lot of you are further ahead in terms of lighting, and are using better bulbs/brands or different light set ups.

My tank's pretty low spec and I'm new to all this, I can only get 2x T8's so am looking for the best, but believe me I have spent hours of research on Life Glo, Aqua Glo, Power Glo, and I just can't seem to pinpoint what is best for plants and my fish.. I have spoke to Hagen they give me information then other aquarium shops tell me different, and some say Life Glo other's say Life Glo 2, some say power glo is useless and aqua glo is better then others say flora glo is best.

I know nothing about lights, but I have worked out the WPG and I think mines only 1.5 over 20 gal...anyway so I can only grow limited plants I guess, but I want the best glo tubes I can get. 

I kind of worked out plants need red and blue in the spectrum but I don't know how much or what, but I have been looking to compare the spectrum's of life glo and life glo 2 but can't find them to compare, so I was hoping someone who had experience with these bulbs can help me  

Thanks anyway.


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## Bandit1200 (Dec 11, 2010)

As far as your question goes, at a basic level all the bulbs you listed will perform about the same. The biggest difference you will find is the color that the bulbs appear to you. I prefer the higher spectrum bulbs, generally around 10k. Before I figured this out I went though a whole series of Hagen bulbs before I ended up running two that averaged their spectrum around 10k and looked "good" to me. Individually neither one of them looks all that "good" to me, but together they did the trick and I got decent growth. So the hard part for you will be finding the spectrum that's appealing to you. Some people like the "warmer" spectrums around 5700k, but I find them way too yellow. The 10k is closer to "white" or even towards the blue, but it seems to make everything look much nicer to me.

Unless you are running two bulbs simultaneously, you're not going to get much growing done either way, as those bulbs just don't put out that much light for anything taller than 12 inches. You said you have a 20, but not what version, ie. 20 standard, 20 tall or 20 long. If you have a 20L you might get some decent growth for a while until the par starts to drop off as they age.


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## Jafooli (Feb 9, 2013)

Hey Bandit1200

Thanks for the reply, 

Interesting you say about the PAR dropping off, I must say I don't know about all this "par" as its to complicated and I don't have par meters etc, but I get what your saying... I think the Aqua Glo and Power Glo I have now are totally dead... reason being.. I get growth on my plants.. but my plants use to grow out of the tank and needed cutting nearly every 2 weeks, now the same plant.. does not even reach half way of my tank.. and another plant I have is on its way to reach water level.. so plants are growing but slow... and I've had the lights 10 months now for 10hours a day. 

My tank is 20Gallon Tall I think, 45cm height, so about 17inch lol, but prob 14inch for the water line depth. No wonder my carpet plants seem to shrink and rot rather then take off lol...  I've tried two carpet plants with no luck.

I found a article online where someone tested all the Hagen bulbs for there reef, and showed the color's afterwards.. which you mention.. he actually found the Aqua Or Power Glo with Life Glo at the front to be the best natural and true light which looked nice, and then obviously more research indicated these bulbs could be best for me and my plants. Until I found Life Glo and Life Glo 2 so not sure which to buy....

You also say "at a basic level all the bulbs you listed will perform about the same"

I thought the lights that peak higher in the red and blue spectrum would perform better then one that doesn't? I'm still confused on what to look for in spectrum pictures, but maybe that's another question, to go along side how come LED lights don't have spectrum pictures, unless they do.

Is there any chance you know of any T8 lights 15w 18" that would perform better than the Hagen glo tubes? if not I guess I'l have to take a chance on power glo and life glo 2 as its the latest life glo bulb, and hopefully for 6 months I can get my plants growing bushy and tall again.


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## Bandit1200 (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm not a "par" genius myself, but it's basically a measurement of the effective amount of light at a given depth. Your eyes can't tell too much difference of an effective par or not, so a lot of it is guesswork without an actual par meter. Your bulbs at 10 months will definitely lost a great deal of their effective output, even though you may be able to see it. It's generally recommended to replace fluorescent bulbs once a year to keep a consistent amount of light on them. I've even seen it recommended that your replace one bulb at a time to prevent a "shock" to your system.

There are others here with more knowledge of the par/spectrum output of the bulbs you asked about, but _in my opinion_, there's not much difference in reality in the output frequencies of the bulbs as far as growing plants. Not unless you're way outside the normal spectrum of what most have access to in bulbs. I'm into motorcycles so my examples involve those:

2011 GSX1000R can do 1/4 mile in 10.6 seconds
2011 R1 can do 1/4 mile in 10.7 seconds

Which one is superior? Keep in mind both of those times are recorded with a professional rider (which I'm not sadly, not outside my head anyway). I couldn't make either one of those bikes run the 1/4 mile like that, so the difference to me is mute, they're both awesome machines. That could be compared to us regular guys without par meters and spectral analysis equipment. If it make plants grow, I'm not too worried about which spectrum is highest on a particular bulb. And in my experience, there's not much difference. Like I said in my previous post, the biggest issue to me is how does it look to me. Other than that the only other issue is the intensity which is also partially determined by the depth of the object to be illuminated. 

In your case you want carpeting plants, so the depth is going to be all the way down to the substrate. Unfortunately I don't believe you'll be able to achieve that on a 20 tall with only 2 t8 bulbs, no matter the spectrum/frequencies involved. I had a similar setup on a 20 long and everything grew pretty well. When I upgraded to a 29 and tried to just swap out the lights, the results where less than thrilling. I believe you'll fall into that same category in a 20 tall. I'm checking the specs on them to see the diff now...says you're at 24 inches vs the 30 I had. You may get better results than I did running the double t8 setup, but I don't think you'll ever get the results you really want. 

Under "ideal" conditions the carpeting plants aren't looking for more light so they tend to grow shorter and wider. In the case where they are "hungry" for more light, they will grow thinner and taller. Basically they are reaching up trying to get more light. I saw this behavior with both glosso and HC. They were healthy and over-all grew ok, but I couldn't get them to stay down no matter how much I trimmed them. Maybe someone else out there can advise on that particular. 

All in all what I meant to say before the essay here is I don't think you'll ever really be happy with just the t8 bulbs without subsidizing them somehow, either figuring out how to add a third or maybe even adding some cliplights somehow. I've seen pics of some pretty nice growths with nothing but cliplights and CFL bulbs from the hardware stores. I prefer the cool white color myself. Good luck and hopefully I haven't just confused you more.


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## Jafooli (Feb 9, 2013)

Hey Bandit1200

Thanks for your reply and the time you spent explaining it all to me. 

Don't worry you haven't confused me, if anything its made me more confident to go out and just make a purchase on the bulbs I very first mentioned as I'm pretty happy they will give a clear bright look, as I mentioned someone compared all the Hagen Glo bulbs in there double fixture and took pictures of the different colors of there tank and the results looked pretty nice and hopefully some brand new bulbs will give my plants some stronger light again. 

I will also just give up with carpeting plants for now I think, I have only tried 2 different one's and the first one seemed to just die, this was before I had co2 + ferts, and the one I have now is lilaeopsis brasiliensis which seems to not be doing anything at all lol. But all other plants seem to be growing nicely, and am hoping some Hygrophila Difformis will take off. 

It's a shame my Fluval Roma 90 has a black rim around it because it's made it hard for me to do any upgrades, and I looked at LED strips and there expensive, and I looked at a arcadia luminaire and I could of hanged it from the ceiling but then the light would brighten my room up and reflect in my eyes as my tank is near the tv and I'm not the best at DIY so don't think I would be able to build a canopy. 

I guess I'll just buy the new bulbs and stick to low light plants and take a few chances on plants and see what grows and doesn't until maybe one day I buy a new tank and make sure I do my research on the lights it comes with or go down the nano tank route, seems less expensive than buying a big tank. 

It's to stressing learning about PAR etc lol especially as I am one of those people who like to try to understand and learn everything about something I need or spend hours making sure what I am going to buy is the best and will work etc, I just want to enjoy the tank and grow healthy plants, but its all a learning curve so one bit at a time I guess, rather than taking it all in at one go. Lights are obviously one of the most important steps into the plant hobby, but I don't want to lose interest and find my self nearly becoming a light technician lol. I only got my tank a year ago and never new there was such a hobby where people do aquascaping etc, so I'll just have to keep learning and asking here when I get stuck or buy a new tank  

Thanks for all your help and time helping me out.


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## OVT (Nov 29, 2011)

You can try Blyxa japonica - it is not really a 'carpeting' plant but it does have grassy look, can be trimmed and just might do fine in your light.
Good luck and I really respect your 'learn everything' approach.

via Droid DNA Tapatalk 2


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## Jafooli (Feb 9, 2013)

Thanks OVT for the plant recommendation, I took a look and it looks like a lovely plant.

I will see if I can get hold of it and give it a try, then I can remove the lilaeopsis brasiliensis if it don't improve with my new bulbs. 

Thanks again.


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