Watts up?

I've seen the rule about 2w per gallon of water, question is, what's with
the specialty lighting, such as powerglow and aquaglow, is that a way to
artificially increase energy output for the plants without increasing the
wattage?

Just curious as I have a 40w in my 90g, it's an Aquaglow. it's an oddball
size, 42". It's the highest wattage light I can get in a 42". I can switch
to paired 24" flourescents, but I'd need to cover the entire top of the tank
with them to get anywhere close to the wattage required.

What ideas can you guys give that actually increase the wattage that high or
do the specialty lights actually do the trick? Is there an aquarium branded
light that goes that high wattage, or do you switch to shop lights and make
your own set-ups?

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 11:06:11 UTC, "D&M" wrote:

I've seen the rule about 2w per gallon of water, question is, what's with
the specialty lighting, such as powerglow and aquaglow, is that a way to
artificially increase energy output for the plants without increasing the
wattage?

Just curious as I have a 40w in my 90g, it's an Aquaglow. it's an oddball
size, 42". It's the highest wattage light I can get in a 42". I can switch
to paired 24" flourescents, but I'd need to cover the entire top of the tank
with them to get anywhere close to the wattage required.

What ideas can you guys give that actually increase the wattage that high or
do the specialty lights actually do the trick? Is there an aquarium branded
light that goes that high wattage, or do you switch to shop lights and make
your own set-ups?

The real secret is Power Compact fluorescents. They are In right now,
and for a good reason. For instance, you can get 55 watts in a 22-inch
package (including the the extra length of reflector and end-cap). I have
an oddball arrangement in my 55-gallon tank, with 2 55-watt lights over
one end and one over the other end, but getting bright light over the
whole tank would be no problem.

Try looking at
http://www.ahsupply.com/index.html
There are lots of sellers, but I like these guys because they stock bulbs
with color temperature in the range of natural sunlight (5500 K) whereas
most suppliers just have reef-worthy lights of 6700 K and above, and I
don't _want_ my freshwater planted tank to look like like a reef wannabe.

These things aren't cheap, though.


--

http://www.dandrake.com/

In the days after September 11, Yahoo searches for Nostradamus
outnumbered those for Osama bin Laden and Sex, combined.

On Tue, 30 Sep 2003 07:06:11 -0400, "D&M" wrote:

I've seen the rule about 2w per gallon of water, question is, what's with
the specialty lighting, such as powerglow and aquaglow, is that a way to
artificially increase energy output for the plants without increasing the
wattage?

No, the powerglo and aquaglo don't put out any more light than any
other type of tube. They are simply different spectrums, and the
difference has more effect on the tank's appearance to our eye than it
does on plant growth.

What ideas can you guys give that actually increase the wattage that high or
do the specialty lights actually do the trick? Is there an aquarium branded
light that goes that high wattage, or do you switch to shop lights and make
your own set-ups?

The Compact Fluorescents pack more wattage into a smaller space.
Check out www.ahsupply.com for their light kits.

An alternative is "overdriving" conventional tubes. You can get a
relatively inexpensive ballast from home depot. It can run 1, 2, 3 or
4 4 foot T-8 tubes. But, if you wire two sets of leads to each
tube, the tube will run brighter. Much brighter, but not twice the
wattage brighter. The tubes will supposedly burn out sooner, but
using cheap standard home-lighting T-8 tubes that is really no big
deal.



Chuck Gadd
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua

If you're a DIYer, Mort specifically just wrote up an article about
overdriving the regular T8 and you may find that making your own hood is the
way to go.... If not, I'd suggest AHSupply...


"D&M" wrote in message
...
I've seen the rule about 2w per gallon of water, question is, what's with
the specialty lighting, such as powerglow and aquaglow, is that a way to
artificially increase energy output for the plants without increasing the
wattage?

Just curious as I have a 40w in my 90g, it's an Aquaglow. it's an oddball
size, 42". It's the highest wattage light I can get in a 42". I can switch
to paired 24" flourescents, but I'd need to cover the entire top of the
tank
with them to get anywhere close to the wattage required.

What ideas can you guys give that actually increase the wattage that high
or
do the specialty lights actually do the trick? Is there an aquarium
branded
light that goes that high wattage, or do you switch to shop lights and
make
your own set-ups?