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New AH Supply bulbs and fixtures

We ordered bulbs and fixtures from AH Supply last Tuesday and received them 
Friday afternoon. Very impressive service.

I installed the new setup in the tank with the old Sears shoplights. The 
entire disassembly and reassembly job took about three hours. The AH Supply 
kit was complete and went together very easily. Very impressive kit - 
nothing for the electrically challenged to be worried about.

I made some lux measurements of the old hood before we took it apart. 
Nothing very sophisticated; the hood was on some boxes and I put my 
luxmeter under it at various locations. The measuring point was 17" below 
the bulbs or what would be about 13" below the water surface. Some 
measurements were hard to make due to the boxes. The following lux values 
were noted:

Old bulbs (values in Lux); Sears shoplights, white reflector
Age of bulbs unknown (around 1 year); all 40w NO bulbs
Advance tar ballasts

Coralife ColorMax
PennPlax Ultra Tri-Lux
PennPlax Ultra Tri-Lux
Triton

       0"     12"     24"     36"     48"     60"
20" 1320    2980    4050    3880    2640    ????
15" 2320    3920    5330    5230    3720    1540
10" 2320    4250    5740    5630    4080    2140
  5" 2210    4000    5280    5320    3750    2070
  0" 1220    2880    3960    3930    2820    1200

The following values were for the new kits. The bulbs were centered in the 
hood side-to-side (5" gap from the hood to the end of each reflector and 5" 
between the refelctors in the middle).

New bullbs; AH Supply 55w kits, silvered reflector
Brand new bulbs; all 55w CF bulbs
Electronic ballast

Sylvania 6700K + 6700K
Philips  5300K + 5300K

       0"     12"     24"     36"     48"     60"
20" ????    5540    6660    5810    5120    3050
15" ????    8420    8800    8160    7400    6020
10" ????    9555   10430    9280    8440    5020
  5" 3670    8520    9620    7450    6230    3280
  0" 1700    5280    6630    5930    4950    1800

I was puzzled by the apparent 20% difference from left to right. I'll make 
more measurements after the bulbs have burned in more to get a better 
comparison with the old origianl bulbs.

Overall, the tank is much brighter (80% was a very good estimate) and the 
color balance looks good to the eye. The 5300 bulbs in the front help bring 
out the fish and plant colors.

Very impressive product.

George

George Booth in Ft. Collins, Colorado (booth at frii_com)
"The web site for Aquatic Gardeners by Aquatic Gardeners"
   http://www.frii.com/~booth/AquaticConcepts/