I believe they are regular flourescent bulbs. I run them in standard
48" aquarium light strips (Oceanic) and in the much talked about Lights
of America shop light. I am fixing to buy some more of them.
On the CO thing...I had been running all my planted tanks without CO2
until recently when I put the chintzy (and cheap since I got them from a
friend who was tired of messing with it) tetra diffusion bells setup in
2, 75s; 1, 55; and 1, 30.
Prior to this, my plants did OK and some of them (especially val and
crypts) propagated well. But you know, my plants in the CO2 tanks are
going BONKERS now. Hell, I've got plants propagating now that I didn't
think propagated ;-) I have various shoots all over these tanks.
I agree with you, however, that it all depends how fast you want your
plants to grow. It is more work maintaining these tanks for sure, with
all the trimming of plants and extra algae on my glass. But, I will pay
for my next couple of Coralife 10,000K bulbs, in trade, with all the
wildly growing, 4 foot Italian Val I've been taking to my local pet
shop.
Jim