Light Bulb for Mini Bow 5

[crznsunshine]

Hi guys. I am new to betta fish and their care, just got my first two boys in the past week. Right now, they both have their own Mini Bow 5 gallon tank, which has the filter running and I added a heater to each tank. I purchased a live plant and a moss ball for each tank, I just have two concerns.

First, should I change the Incandescent light bulb which came with the tank, to the CFL bulb you guys recommend? I am clueless on which bulb, or if any at all, will work in the Mini Bow 5.

Second, I have my live plant planted right into the gravel, is this ok? I believe they are an amazon sword. The fish care person at PetSmart said this would be ok, but I come to find out from reading this forum, that they usually don't know what they are saying. :/

Thanks in advance for any help!

[shellieca]

I have the stock lights that came with my tanks, not the the same as yours & my swords have grown quite well. My swords are stuck into the gravel. The one in my 10g tank is almost to the top of the water in a couple of months so its at least doubled its size.

[OrangeAugust]

Yeah, In my mini bow, I swapped the incandescent bulb out for a regular compact fluorescent. Although they say that unless you get a K rating of over 6500K or something like that, it won't do anything for your plants. Mine only had a K rating of 1700K and I couldn't find anything higher and I went to a bunch of stores.
I do have one plant that did really great in that low lighting, though. I have no idea what it's called, though. Also Hornwort and Fanwort did ok. All my other plants kept dying because they didn't have enough light.
I dropped the hood last week and busted the light fixture, so I am using a really bright LED desk lamp right now. I'm curious to see if that helps my plants at all. It didn't have a K rating so I have no idea if it's the same as those 6500K compact fluorescent bulbs, but the color of the light is much closer.