Testing screw in fluorescents

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 02:38:36 GMT, (Richard Sexton)
wrote:

In article .com,
dfreas wrote:
Interesting. And almost certainly correct - I figured there was a loss
from the shape but didn't think it might be as significant as you
suggest. I think I will continue with the test for now just to see what
happens. I don't think I'm going to change to tube lighting - mostly
because I'm only growing low to mid light plants in this tank anyway
but I may start thinking about ways to modify my current setup to get
more of the light into the tank. Deffinately something to put some
thought into.

Well, it's a point source of light, not a strip, so, look to
exampled of other point sources of light. For example, metal halide
bulbs. They use either batwing reflectors or pendants.

I found some cheap ($1) reflectors at a salvage place. Combined
with cheap ($1) 11W screwins from "Dollorama" they make, well,
a reasonable $2 light for a small tank:

http://images.aquaria.net/hw/lights/pendants/cheap/

For screwins in incandescent fixtures about the best I could do
is use the heat and moisture resistant mylar from hydroponics.com
and these fixtures are on my daughters tanks that have crypts
and java fern:

http://images.aquaria.net/hw/lights/screwins/


For my 2.5 G tanks I use 13W bulbs. Each tank gets half of an
AHSUPPLY 26 watt bright kit. I just build a new hood from rain gutter
parts, I like it so far.


--
Charles

Does not play well with others.

For my 2.5 G tanks I use 13W bulbs. Each tank gets half of an
AHSUPPLY 26 watt bright kit. I just build a new hood from rain gutter
parts, I like it so far.

Seven watter per gallon ought to work :-)

I tried rain gutter too, white plastic stuff. The problem I had is the
heat from the lights (not insignificant) makes it hard, brittle
and over time turns the inside brown. I ened up grabbing a bunhc of
cheap incandescent hood from garage sales, they have a metal plate
to diddipate the heat. You can scavange a bit of the otherwise waster light
if you add some reflector material.

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org | Mercedes Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Old wris****ches http://watches.list.mbz.org

Richard Sexton wrote:
For my 2.5 G tanks I use 13W bulbs. Each tank gets half of an
AHSUPPLY 26 watt bright kit. I just build a new hood from rain gutter
parts, I like it so far.


Seven watter per gallon ought to work :-)

I tried rain gutter too, white plastic stuff. The problem I had is the
heat from the lights (not insignificant) makes it hard, brittle
and over time turns the inside brown. I ened up grabbing a bunhc of
cheap incandescent hood from garage sales, they have a metal plate
to diddipate the heat. You can scavange a bit of the otherwise waster light
if you add some reflector material.

I'm doing the same for my 2gal - using the incandescent hood that came
with the tank. I've got the fixture sitting on eggcrate so that the
tank evaporates more water to keep from overheating.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

On Sun, 06 Mar 2005 05:34:11 GMT, Elaine T
wrote:

Richard Sexton wrote:
For my 2.5 G tanks I use 13W bulbs. Each tank gets half of an
AHSUPPLY 26 watt bright kit. I just build a new hood from rain gutter
parts, I like it so far.


Seven watter per gallon ought to work :-)

I tried rain gutter too, white plastic stuff. The problem I had is the
heat from the lights (not insignificant) makes it hard, brittle
and over time turns the inside brown. I ened up grabbing a bunhc of
cheap incandescent hood from garage sales, they have a metal plate
to diddipate the heat. You can scavange a bit of the otherwise waster light
if you add some reflector material.

I'm doing the same for my 2gal - using the incandescent hood that came
with the tank. I've got the fixture sitting on eggcrate so that the
tank evaporates more water to keep from overheating.


The incandescent hoods that came with my small tanks were pretty much
junk. The fluorescent lights melted holes in them.

the bright kit comes with a metal reflector, so I didn't need to do
anything there. I've only had the first one running for a week or so,
I'll wait to see how it works out. The plastic is PVC, so it will
probably get brittle over time, if too badly or not, we'll see.


--
Charles

Does not play well with others.

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:45:08 GMT, (Richard Sexton)
wrote:

For my 2.5 G tanks I use 13W bulbs. Each tank gets half of an
AHSUPPLY 26 watt bright kit. I just build a new hood from rain gutter
parts, I like it so far.

Seven watter per gallon ought to work :-)



the watts per gallon does sound outrageous, but I don't see it as too
bright. In one tank some dwarf sagitaria does really well, in another
anubius grows about normally (slow), java moss survives, Echinodorus
tenellus barely lives and algae grows, but not too badly. There must
be a scale factor working here, but I don't understand it.
--
Charles

Does not play well with others.

Charles wrote:
On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 03:45:08 GMT, (Richard Sexton)
wrote:


For my 2.5 G tanks I use 13W bulbs. Each tank gets half of an
AHSUPPLY 26 watt bright kit. I just build a new hood from rain gutter
parts, I like it so far.

Seven watter per gallon ought to work :-)




the watts per gallon does sound outrageous, but I don't see it as too
bright. In one tank some dwarf sagitaria does really well, in another
anubius grows about normally (slow), java moss survives, Echinodorus
tenellus barely lives and algae grows, but not too badly. There must
be a scale factor working here, but I don't understand it.

Agreed. I'm getting Rotala indica growing about 1/2" a day on the 2
gallon tank with 14 watts but that's about like 2 wpg on a larger tank.
Many years ago, when small CF bulbs were not available I tried a 4
watt CF fixture designed for closets. That's 2 wpg, yet I could barely
keep Anubias alive.

I suspect that there is a minimum number of lumens required for aquatic
plant growth. In smaller tanks, we need more than 2 wpg to reach the
magic number.

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__

In article ,
the watts per gallon does sound outrageous, but I don't see it as too
bright. In one tank some dwarf sagitaria does really well, in another
anubius grows about normally (slow), java moss survives, Echinodorus
tenellus barely lives and algae grows, but not too badly. There must
be a scale factor working here, but I don't understand it.

Watts per gallon is a rough metric. Watts of energy going in
does not always produce the same lumens or lux (quantity) of
light coming out, and the shape of the bulb and and type or absence
or a reflector also matters.

What is significant is aht emount of light measured at the gravel.
And old photographic light meter in a plastic bag can measure this.

Small tanks and small bulbs are really a boundry condition for the
"watts per gallon" ruls and forumulas, especially imprecise ones
don't work well at boundry conditions.

Sounds fine to me.

--
Need Mercedes parts ? - http://parts.mbz.org
http://www.mbz.org | Mercedes Mailing lists: http://lists.mbz.org
633CSi 250SE/C 300SD | Killies, killi.net, Crypts, aquaria.net
1970 280SE, 72 280SE | Old wris****ches http://watches.list.mbz.org

On Sun, 6 Mar 2005 18:26:11 GMT, (Richard Sexton)
wrote:

In article ,
the watts per gallon does sound outrageous, but I don't see it as too
bright. In one tank some dwarf sagitaria does really well, in another
anubius grows about normally (slow), java moss survives, Echinodorus
tenellus barely lives and algae grows, but not too badly. There must
be a scale factor working here, but I don't understand it.

Watts per gallon is a rough metric. Watts of energy going in
does not always produce the same lumens or lux (quantity) of
light coming out, and the shape of the bulb and and type or absence
or a reflector also matters.

What is significant is aht emount of light measured at the gravel.
And old photographic light meter in a plastic bag can measure this.

Small tanks and small bulbs are really a boundry condition for the
"watts per gallon" ruls and forumulas, especially imprecise ones
don't work well at boundry conditions.

Sounds fine to me.


All good to me, but no way am I going to put my light meter in the
tank, plastic bag or no. I wonder why no one has yet built a light
meter with a submersible sensor. I'm happy with those lights on those
tanks, so I am not going to do anything about it anyway.
--
Charles

Does not play well with others.

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:23:13 GMT, Charles
wrote:
(snip)

I wonder why no one has yet built a light
meter with a submersible sensor.

I found out, they do. Got a Petsolutions catalog today, it fell open
at that page.
--
Charles

Does not play well with others.

Charles wrote:
On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 04:23:13 GMT, Charles
wrote:
(snip)


I wonder why no one has yet built a light
meter with a submersible sensor.


I found out, they do. Got a Petsolutions catalog today, it fell open
at that page.

Gotta love serendipity! If you get it, please share your results!

--
__ Elaine T __
__' http://eethomp.com/fish.html '__