Well i was always told actinics penetrate deeper depths and are of the spectrum to help photosynthesis in plants, correct me if I'm wrong. About CF's well I only own one and its been doing a fairly good job in my 90g, although I have VHO's on my 180g set up.
plant lighting and setup questions
- Thread starter pwmin
- Start date
Well that is news to me! 
lol need to replace my bulbs in the next month or so, might just get a pack of 4 daylight bulbs
lol need to replace my bulbs in the next month or so, might just get a pack of 4 daylight bulbs
Actinics do nothing for freshwater plants, and CF doesn't penetrate the water column more than 6" generally.
so, where do you get that a 36" 39W T5 HO bulb puts out 9000 lumens? that would mean a lot less bulbs than I was figuring. did I not answer your questions correctly yet?
You'll have to do some work for yourself. I can't tell you what stores you have in your area, nor which ones will carry a specific product.
to whom are you talking to?WyldFya;1359074; said:
I guess I will summarize my thoughts now so I will be able to get down to the specific questions that I need help answering (ignore my first post and the others, i guess).
As far as the plants go, I am going to research the list WyldFya gave earlier in this thread and the plant profile sticky, etc., so I will come back if I have any specific questions that I cannot figure the answers out to myself.
The lighting I have right now is not going to be used, so I am looking into T5 HO fixtures. Everywhere I have read (on the internet) says that T5 HO puts out 90 lumens/W. Therefore, a 36" (39W) bulb would put out approximately 3500 lumens (which is what everywhere I read also said). WyldFya said that 10 of those bulbs would put out 90000 lumens, which would equate to 9000 lumens per bulb. Where is the discrepancy coming from? From my equations before and what WyldFya said, I am definitely missing something as I don't see how it can take almost 6 39W T5 HO bulbs to get an LPG factor of 200 in 1/2 of a 125 gal tank. What am I missing? I do not see anything else in the "end of WPG" sticky.
here's my math that isnt correct:
x=y/z
x=LPG factor (assume 200 just for reference)
y=lumens
z=tank factor
z=(23*2)+18+(72/2)=100
200=y/100
y=20,000 lumens (at 3500/bulb, i would need almost 6, which supposedly and logically isnt/doesnt seem right)
edit: i'm planning on using 6700K bulbs as of now
I'm thinking about getting 2 Nova Extreme 2x39W. The one with 4 bulbs would be $100 more than 2 of the 2 bulb ones. There are pros to the 4 bulb version (moonlight, only having one instead of 2), but they're not worth $100 to me.
http://cgi.ebay.com/NOVA-EXTREME-36...ageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p1638.m118
I was going to get the following 4x39W fixture, but they don't tell you how much shipping is going to cost until it's actually shipped and I just don't trust that. Would you?
http://www.northcoastmarines.com/lighting_systems_fluor.htm
http://cgi.ebay.com/NOVA-EXTREME-36...ageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem?_trksid=p1638.m118
I was going to get the following 4x39W fixture, but they don't tell you how much shipping is going to cost until it's actually shipped and I just don't trust that. Would you?
http://www.northcoastmarines.com/lighting_systems_fluor.htm
WyldFya;1358137; said:
I'm not trying to start anything here but this has got to be the most insane comment I have heard on this site. I have really respected most of what you have told people but this is completely wrong. 6"?! The cheapest, crapiest full spectrum aquarium bulb can easily penetrate deeper than that. I personally know someone with a HEAVILY planted 31" deep tank running solely CFs. This includes carpeting of microsword and dawf hairgrass (at what? 25"?). The pearling of the grass is enough to make the the carpeted areas shimmer and the water to "fizz". This is all at 4.5wpg (yes, even with the incredibly low, crap output you claim the CF's have).
What determines the penetration depth is not what size or power of bulb, but color temp. It's true, actinic can easily penetrate very deeply at even the lowest outputs (yes, even 1w), but it is unusable by most plants. You can overcome depth however by increasing the color temp to the higher limits of photosynthisis like a combo of 6700k and 10,000k and even 15,000k at the extreme limit.
The lower the temp, the more red the light is. The higher the temp, the more blue the light is. As light penetrates water, it filters out the lower temps first and then continues upward filtering yellows till nothing remains but blue. Try this: put a red LED and a blue LED over your tank and see which is bighter at the bottom (do this in the dark). Bet ya I'm right... and does this sound somewhat familiar? Like major manufactures might be doing right now? Ever notice that the white moon LEDs look slightly blue at night? Why? Why do the blue ones seem so ungodly bright at only 3/4 watt??!!
Penetration has many factors, but to be affective, CF lighting has to be approximately 4x the lumens per gallon as many higher lighting options. While it may look like the light is getting there, the effective amount of light getting to the bottom drops off very quickly with CF lighting. This can be seen easily with plants. CF's effective growing light will only penetrate with effective lighting for 6". The major problem with your thinking isn't in the color filtering, but rather the factor of the plants themselves. 15,000K is one of the most useless bulbs for lighting plants, as the color spectrum that accompanies these bulbs won't accommodate good growth of plants. Trust me when I say that CF lighting's effective penetration for plants is only 6". After that 6", the lights growth ability will drop off very quickly. Your example of dwarf hair grass and microswords shows your ignorance as well. Neither of these plants are hard to grow, and can even be grown under 2wpg of T12 lighting at 24" to achieve a carpet. I don't claim that CF lighting has poor output compared to HO T5, MH and LED, I state the fact that it has less effective use than many better forms of lighting.
If you have to say something like this, then you better stop, and type something that isn't going to get you into trouble. Try to be respectful to all members, otherwise you will be looking for a new site.
If you have to say something like this, then you better stop, and type something that isn't going to get you into trouble. Try to be respectful to all members, otherwise you will be looking for a new site.
